Answering an Oregon "Legal Scholar"

susan lee smith

Contact Information 245 Winter Street SE Salem, Oregon 97301 smiths@willamette.edu

Susan L. Smith is a law professor at Williamette University, who “focuses her scholarly research on the role of law in achieving sustainability and environmental criminal enforcement.”  She is a former senior trial attorney and Assistant of the Environmental Defense Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice, where she received several awards for distinguished service.  She has taught “Environmental Law and Policy, Sustainable Natural Resources Law, Environmental Criminal Enforcement, Toxic Substances Regulation, Water Law...”  With this background, Smith took it upon herself to publish erroneous information about me, my teaching, and the Constitution to defend her environmental activist ideologies.   Here is my response to her flawed opinions:

Answering an Oregon “Legal Scholar”

After reading Professor Susan Lea Smith’s review” of my ‘legal arguments’ in her opinion piece dated January 22, 2016, it is clear that environmentalist Susan Smith has done very little research on the matters she attempts to address in her opinion piece to the people of Harney County; including, but not limited to, my qualifications, my teaching on the subject of State Sovereignty, and the matter in which I taught the citizens of Harney County, Oregon. If Ms. Smith researches her legal teachings in the same sad manner in which she researched my teaching, I pity her students at Williamette University Law School.

In Ms. Smith’s first footnote she questions my qualifications as a “scholar.” Unlike Ms. Smith, this is not a title that I have ever been so arrogant to bestow upon myself, and I think a simple definition might clear the confusion:

schol·ar ˈskälər (noun)  a specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities; a distinguished academic. A person who is highly educated or has an aptitude for study. synonyms:  academic, intellectual, learned person, man/woman of letters, mind, intellect.

I would be curious to understand why Ms. Smith doesn’t believe my years of dedicated specialized study, the five books, and over 100 published articles I have written would not qualify me as a “specialist.” Is it perhaps because I am not currently employed by a small rural college (ranked 132nd out of 144 ranked law schools in the US)? I wonder how many classes Ms. Smith teaches that qualify her to give a “scholarly opinion?” How many people has she taught? Annually, I teach an average of 265 lessons in over 22 States, and in just ten months I teach an average of over 40 thousand people, yet that is not good enough for Ms. Smith. Prior to my private teaching, I taught at the law enforcement academy in Madison County Florida for over a year as an adjunct professor. Perhaps she didn’t take the time to research all of this, which wouldn’t surprise me.

Next Ms. Smith tries to impugn my reputation by questioning my association with the Florida Bar and my qualifications in the area of Constitutional law. Once again, this highlights Ms. Smith’s pathetic research skills. First, I am a member of the Florida Bar. My bar number is a matter of public record. Additionally, as a member of the Florida Bar, I have chosen to be listed as “inactive” because I am not able to take on litigation cases due to my incredibly active teaching, speaking, and publication schedule.  My standing with the Florida Bar is not under question and I have never received any disciplinary actions by the Florida Bar.  All of this can be discovered by a rudimentary search on the internet.

Finally, as to my qualifications; I received my JD from The University of Florida, Levin College of Law (ranked in the top 50 law schools in the country).  While in law school I was the only member of my class to receive the University’s Constitutional Law Scholarship.  Prior to graduation, I was fast tracked into the University’s certified legal intern program by the State Attorney of the 3rd Judicial Circuit of Florida, receiving my certification before any of my other 300 classmates.  While participating in the internship program, prior to graduation, I had already successfully tried over 10 criminal jury trials.  I was not only a prosecutor for the State of Florida for nearly a decade, but I also specifically practiced Constitutional law with a private firm for over two years. With this firm, I defended the Rights of dozens of people in active court, in multiple States.  Additionally, I gave legal advice to dozens of private citizens, and to both public and private organizations in the area of Constitutional law every year. I wonder, how many real Constitutional cases, in a real courtroom, has Ms. Smith had the opportunity to lead? Any attorney would know how to find this information.  But, I guess truth was not an important part of Ms. Smith’s paper to Harney County.  Maybe someone at Williamette should explain Ms. Smith the elements of libel?

Ironically, Ms. Smith claims that I teach an interpretation of the Constitution called “textualism.”  That could not be any further from the truth. A simply review of my over 100 teaching articles, videos, or any one of my five books, (all available with simple glance on my website) proves that statement to be patently false. Ms. Smith claims her interpretation is based upon “original intent,” yet she nearly immediately deviates from original intent by invoking Supreme Court cases as matter of “precedent” to support her opinions, rather than the actual words of intent of the Framers. I will resist the overwhelming urge to reteach my classes to her in this letter; as they are easily accessible in writing, and on YouTube, for those who are actually interested in truth.

You can also discover that I was an environmentalist and a biologist, so I am not unfamiliar with the environmentalist thought process. As with Ms. Smith, it doesn’t seem unusual for an environmentalist at one point in the name of saving swamps and salmon to rail against the federal government’s immunity, yet cheer for the federal government’s universal supremacy when suddenly they are siding with the plants and shredding the Constitution. I will simply say this to the people of Harney County- beware of “scholarly” interpretations that support federal supremacy and judicial supremacy over the inalienable Rights of the People and the powers reserved to the States. Such is a person arguing for slavery, not for the rule of law.

If what Ms. Smith says is true, then Oregon is not a State, but a colony or territory of the federal government. In that case, Oregon should have no representation in the House or Senate and no electoral votes for President. To be a State, that government must be “sovereign and independent” (see Massachusetts v Mellon 262 US 447, 482 (1923) and NFIB v Sebellius 567 US ____ (2012) Docket No. 11-393. A State that does not have sovereignty over its land is not a State but a Territory. Perhaps the people of Oregon might want to know the federal government views them as merely a Territory of the federal government?

The most striking fact of her opinion is Ms. Smith’s complete reliance upon the federal government through its judicial branch to exercise an authority to determine exclusively and finally the limits of its own power. If that is true, we do not live in a Constitutional Republic, where the government is limited and defined by the Constitution. Instead we live in a “totalitarian fedocracy” where the only limit to the government is its own will, dictated by an oligarchy of 9 kings and queens.  Unfortunately, this is a natural consequence of an educated class of people who have been trained in the principles of judicial supremacy rather than in Constitutional supremacy. After all, once a recognized part of this elite class, who wouldn’t want to be the ultimate arbiters of all things; who would voluntarily relinquish that authority to the people through their States as demanded by the Constitution? Apparently not many in our current judicial system, and certainly not Ms. Smith or the federal government she defends.

When the only argument to substantiate federal authority is “because the federal government reasons it to be so,” there is no limit, control, or check and balance to such federal authority. The people are left to surrender to the “whim of the sovereign” and we are reduced to the nature of tributary slaves.

People of Harney County, this is simply a matter of fact and a matter of who you choose to be.  By fact is Oregon a State or a colony? By choice are you free people in a Constitutional Republic or subjects of a federal Oligarchy of nine kings and queens whose oppressive rule is propagated by their slavish minions in the legal field declaring LONG LIVE THE KINGS? It seems that Ms. Smith believes the KING CAN DO NO WRONG as long as he happens to be on the side of her own pet issue.