“We now occupy the proud attitude of a sovereign and independent Republic, which will impose upon us the obligation of evincing to the world that we are worthy to be free. This will only be accomplished by wise legislation, the maintenance of our integrity, and the faithful and just redemption of our plighted faith wherever it has been pledged.” — Sam Houston
“We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws.” — G.K. Chesterton
“Nothing is more common than for bills to include clauses which do not correspond with their title, and which have been artfully introduced, in order to steal an assent to provisions which would never pass if they were openly debated.” — Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833)
“No nation went into oblivion or was destroyed because it had bad laws, or because its statesmen were not intelligent, but because of INTERNAL CORRUPTION, and because they could not maintain the POWER OF SELF-CONTROL.” — Melvin J. Ballard
Joseph Story was right. Many bills are heavily promoted and lauded for a provision media has vigorously endorsed. What they don’t tell you is the venom hidden in the back pages of those bills.
Remember the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)? The heavily endorsed OBBB permanently extended the vast majority of individual and estate tax cuts originally introduced by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). A blessing for middle class Americans!
However,
Among the several onerous inclusions was the 10-year control of AI by the federal government. The 10-year moratorium was strongly opposed by state officials, civil rights advocates, and consumer safety groups, who argued it stripped states of their ability to protect citizens and handed tech developers unchecked power.
It was removed from the OBBB.
President Trump wrote an Executive Order to override the exclusion which aims to preempt state-level AI regulations and establish a unified national framework. Rather than 10 years of federal control, it seeks to block a “patchwork” of state laws to ensure U.S. companies can compete globally.
Key components of Trump’s national AI strategy include:
- AI Litigation Task Force: The Department of Justice (DOJ) task force would challenge state AI regulations in federal court, arguing that restrictive local laws unduly burden interstate commerce.
- Conditional Funding: The EO directs agencies to explore withholding federal discretionary and broadband infrastructure funding from states that maintain or enforce state-level AI laws deemed “onerous” by the DOJ.
- Federal Preemption: The administration is pursuing legislation with Congress to enact a uniform federal standard that explicitly supersedes conflicting state restrictions. (Measures have been debated, but repeatedly have failed to pass.)
While the administration’s executive action creates a federal-first governance model, states and legal experts have strongly pushed back. This EO and its key provisions are sure to be challenged by the states. And they should be!
The EO’s federal control of AI is not one of the enumerated federal powers and thus it belongs to the states. Oh, but there is that “Elastic Clause.”
The “Elastic Clause”
The U.S. Constitution creates a federal government with limited, enumerated powers primarily listed in Article I, Section 8, intended to prevent excessive central authority. Key powers include taxing, borrowing money, regulating interstate/foreign commerce, coining money, establishing post offices, and declaring war. These are distinct from state powers.
But that very same Section 8 also includes the so-called “Elastic Clause.” It authorizes congress to write and pass any laws that are “necessary and proper” to carry out its enumerated powers. These “implied powers” have been used by our overzealous US Congress to create a national bank, to collect a federal income tax, to institute the draft, to pass gun control laws and to set a federal minimum wage, among others.
While founders like Jefferson argued for a strict interpretation, Hamilton’s broader view—that the government must have the means to execute its duties—prevailed, establishing implied powers as lawful.
The principle that state governments and the federal government share co-equal sovereign authority is a core tenet of American federalism and the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution. And yet with constitutional finagling, we have seen bills passed that never should have reached the floor for a vote, including what was added to the OBBB.
Aside from the 10-year control of AI by the federal government, the OBBB contained unrelated poisonous provisions tacked onto the massively favored bill.
- The OBBB will ADD $20 to 30 trillion to the national debt over a 10-year period and does NOT eliminate the Green New Deal. However, Congress has successfully cut billions even though federal judges tried to stop Trump’s EO eliminating funding to USAID, NPR and PBS.
- The bill provides for continuing “conservation” programs, including the 30 x 30 Land Grab that requires the “protection” of 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030. This means NO human access – the “rewilding” of almost 1/3 of America’s territory. (Shades of United Nation Agenda 21/2030). It is a federal eminent domain land grab for CO2 pipelines. (Trump supports CO2 pipelines which gobbles up a huge amount of privately owned farm and ranch property by eminent domain.) The land grab is more than 30%.
- Terror-supporting organizations will retain their tax-exempt status. (CAIR is pleased about this!)
- The “No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” provisions for 2025-2028 provide some relief for taxpayers, BUT taxes on Social Security (Double Taxation) and Medicare will remain in place.
The OBBB bill has already passed, but the SAVE Act has not passed in the Senate. Speaker Johnson is going to shove it through by slipping it in another huge bill where the SAVE Act will be the attached poison.
Like the OBBB, virulent pestilence lurks in the shadows of the SAVE Act.
The SAVE Act
Representative Chip Roy publicly noted that he drafted the initial version of the bill in the spring of 2024 alongside conservative legal policy experts from Heritage, including Hans von Spakovsky. Heritage Foundation is and always has been “controlled opposition.”
Let’s go back to the beginning, which includes the REAL ID.
The REAL ID Act was passed in 2005 by Congress via a legislative recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. It was officially introduced as a bill by Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and signed into law by former President George W. Bush.
The Act was delayed for two decades until President Trump changed the deadline to May 2025. DHS Director Kristi Noem told the public we had to have the REAL ID to fly. This was not true, but it spurred people to stand in line at DMV centers or county clerk’s offices.
What the SAVE Act does to women who have been married and divorced is diabolical. Women who can no longer get their divorce papers cannot prove they were born here to American citizens. Thus, their ability to vote in local, state and federal elections is eliminated! Unless they have a previous passport boarding a plane or voting could be a problem.
- The SAVE Act and the newly rewritten SAVE Act actually grants citizenship to people born in the United States even though their allegiance would be to the jurisdiction they came from, making it a way to use birthright citizenship to gain long-term political influence by giving them the right to vote.
- The SAVE Act mandates a REAL ID card—a facial recognition, digital form of identification aligned with U.N. international standards that will eventually be uploaded to your phone. The plan is to use the REAL ID for all purchases—health care, hotel stays, etc. And, the REAL ID license tracks your every movement.
The passing and implementation of the SAVE Act will lead to total government control over every aspect of your life. (Hat tip JLV for simplifying this.)
Remember that Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause said that its grant of citizenship would not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners or aliens.
But wait…
The landmark Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe (1982) is what changed a law that had been on the books since the 14th Amendment passed on June 13, 1866. In a footnote, registered democrat, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. expanded on the 14th Amendment and the concept of birthright citizenship, particularly regarding its application to children of undocumented residents, those “anchor babies.”
The specific details of that footnote and the broader decision are as follows:
The full text of the majority opinion, including Justice Brennan’s commentary, is available on the Justia Law website.
A federal constitutional amendment cannot be changed by an ordinary law or a Supreme Court justice; meaning a new constitutional amendment must be passed to repeal it and a new amendment written.
Let us remember that a Constitutional Amendment, when it is ratified, is part of the Constitution. You can only change sections of the Constitution by the ratification of another Amendment rendering the prior Amendment inoperative. In my grandparents’ day, an Amendment was passed outlawing the sale of alcoholic drinks. A court could not overrule that. Congress passed an Amendment to withdraw the Prohibition Amendment which the states ratified. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.
The Texas statute was right; Brennan changed the 14th Amendment without having the Amendment overturned and rewritten.
Birthright Citizenship
The core issue of the SAVE Act is birthright citizenship of aliens and foreigners, not just keeping illegals from voting.
Retired Army JAG officer and Constitutional expert Joanna Martin clarified the following in easy-to-understand layman’s terms:
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t grant citizenship status to everybody who is born here. When Congress passed it, they specifically discussed that it wouldn’t make American Indians US citizens even though they were born here. That was because Indians weren’t “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” – they were subject to the jurisdiction of their Tribes.
When illegal aliens breach our Borders and invade our land, and then give birth here, their children are not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” because the parents are here illegally. Their children are subject to the jurisdiction of the Country the invaders left. That’s why all of them can be (and should be) deported. The children are not US citizens.
When American Missionaries, or Diplomats, or military personnel, etc. have a child born abroad, their child is NOT subject to the jurisdiction of the Country in which the child is born. Their child is born a US Citizen. This is an ancient Principle. (Example: John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was a U.S. territory at the time, but he legally acquired his American citizenship at birth because both of his parents were U.S. citizens and his father was stationed in Panama.)
But the SAVE Act violates Section 1 of the 14th Amendment because it provides that anyone born here is a “US Citizen” and will be eligible to vote in federal elections. So, the children of those 10 to 40 million illegals who have invaded our Country would be eligible to vote in all federal elections.
Peter Schweizer’s latest book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, explains that Chinese women have been having surrogate children here since the Brennan rewrite of the 14th Amendment. They are taken back to communist China to raise and then brought into America at legal age to vote.
The issue of non-citizens voting is easily solved: Nearly every State Constitution already restricts voting to US citizens. But the US government prohibited State governments from enforcing that provision in their state constitution by saying (in the Arizona cases) that States couldn’t require applicants for registration to show proof of citizenship because the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 didn’t require proof of citizenship. See Joanna Martin’s important article, Why the States Must Nullify the National Voter Registration Act Now
Congress should repeal the NVRA of 1993 since it is that law which purports to require States to register non-Citizens to vote.
Subjects or Citizens?
Are We Subjects or Citizens? Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution, was recently updated by Edward J. Erler, professor emeritus of political science at California State University, San Bernardino.
Professor Erler’s article is a must read, as he clearly makes the case that not everyone born in America is automatically a U.S. citizen.
This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will render a decision in the case of Trump v. Barbara, a class-action lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order ending the practice of birthright citizenship.
Since 1982, we have seen the massive influx of pregnant women who come to America to have their babies. Once they have a child here, they are then allowed to stay, and they will bring the rest of their family as well. The birth of one child on American soil by illegal aliens can add multiple family members. Reagan’s 1986 amnesty of three million ended up being 18 million with added family.
In Professor Erler’s excellent article, he ends with the following:
“The same kind of confusion that has led us to accept birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens has led us to tolerate dual citizenship. We recall that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specified that those who are naturalized must owe exclusive allegiance to the U.S. to be included within its jurisdiction. And the citizenship oath taken by new citizens today still requires a pledge of such allegiance. But in practice dual citizenship—and dual allegiance—is allowed. This is a sign of the decline of American citizenship and of America as a nation state.
“The doctrine of birthright citizenship and the acceptance of dual citizenship are signs that we in the U.S. are on the verge of reinstituting feudalism and replacing citizenship with the master-servant relationship. The continued vitality of the nation state and of constitutional government depends on the continued vitality of citizenship, which carries with it exclusive allegiance to what the Declaration of Independence calls a “separate and equal” nation. Unless we recover an understanding of the foundations of citizenship, we will find ourselves in a world where there are subjects but no citizens.”
Conclusion
The SAVE America Act is being promoted as the save-all, end-all, be-all to stop illegal aliens from voting in American elections. The bill needs to be rewritten. No one in the alt-right media is delving into the problems with this bill.
America’s death knell creeps ever closer with the passing of bills that contain deadly contaminants for American citizens.
©2026 Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.
