A Constitution is not a self-executing document. Words on parchment do not restrain human ambition on their own. In Federalist No. 48, from which today’s quote is drawn, Madison confronts the disease that has always threatened our republic, the relentless encroaching power of the state. His diagnosis was precise. Hear it.

In 1788, with this quote, Madison gave us two essential truths. First is the diagnosis, that power is of an encroaching nature.  And second is the prescription, that power ought to be effectually restrained. And with these two principles, he was sketching the architecture of a republic designed to check itself. Today, we therefore are forced to ask the question that must follow his warning. How do you stop power, any power, from expanding beyond the limits the people set for it?

The answer is to apply Madison’s restraint, and we will.

The new tool of encroachment which we face today is specifically the secret FEMA algorithm that sets your flood insurance premiums. This is not a market price. It is a tax on your property calculated by a formula you cannot see or appeal. Congress alone

holds the power to levy taxes. Yet this power has slipped into a server farm, running a program called Risk Rating 2.0. There, a bureaucrat enters a command and your family’s financial security is recalculated. No debate, no representative to hold accountable, just a silent digital encroachment of power, surpassing every boundary that Madison envisioned.

Despite the distance of two and a half centuries, Madison diagnosed the disease that is in its advanced stage today. Yet his prescription was precise, effectually restrained, not monitored, not made more efficient, restrained.

My strike secure protocol is the surgical instrument needed for that restraint. The protocol consists of two legislative actions that will dismantle this architecture of overreach at its source. First, the RAINS Act severs the legislative power from the bureaucracy and returns it to the people’s house. Second, the Administrative Independence Act removes the judicial power from the agency’s hands and gives it back to your peers in a courtroom.

For 15 years, Daniel Webster, the incumbent congressman in Florida’s 11th district, has offered managerial theater, studying the theft while the thief empties your home. That is not restraint. It is collaboration. The founder’s warning echoes down to us. Will we build the barriers or will we watch the flood?

We were given a system designed to shackle power. We have watched it become a weapon wielded against us. That ends now.

We will not plead with the machine to be kinder. We will pull its plug. We will use the power of the vote to pass the REINS Act, as well as the Administrative Independence Act, to rebuild the wall around your property.

Madison gave us the diagnosis and the cure. Our charge is to administer it.  That process begins with your vote to send me, Ivette Palomo, to Congress. There, we will enact that cure with the force of law.

But the fight we take to the Capitol doors does not end with this one.

Next week, we will turn this same lens on a different frontier of this war, our land and our water.

We will see how the same unchecked power is choking the aquifer and our future. Join me then as we secure our inheritance.

I am Ivette Palomo, congressional candidate for Florida’s 11th district. And I’ll see you next week at the Founders Forge.

Remember— Strike the root. Secure the table.