President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

So if a state wants to pass its own laws prohibiting certain (or all) firearms, it is free to do so?
If SCOTUS overturns or weakens Roe v. Wade, states can ignore the ruling?
If the federal government wants to send troops to a war, a governor or state legislature can say, "You can't send our citizens?"

When they spew this nonsense, I wish they would do so in context, so we know the parameters of their delusion.

 

I'm not enough of a legal scholar to explain how, but there are plenty of obvious examples.
Lots of states and cities have their own laws restricting or banning firearms that have either been upheld or not challenged.
Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, but more and more states are legalizing it within their own borders.
In California, the governor said he would not send National Guard troops to the border or would severely limit their operations there.
Sanctuary cities are pretty much in open defiance of federal law and the federal government, to varying degrees.
It really all depends on how much the state or city wants to test the boundaries of the theory, and how far the current administration is willing to push back.

 

Also, if the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states would have to pass their own laws to ban abortion or not.

 

Going down the list:

1) States are allowed to pass laws that extend federal laws. That's not nullification. If federal law restricts something, states can't permit it, but they can restrict it further. If federal law sets a minimum, states can't ignore it, but they can go higher, etc.

2) Marijuana is illegal under federal law. Federal law enforcement often chooses not to enforce this because it is not a high priority. But marijuana being legal in your state will not protect you if the feds decide to come down on it.

3) The National Guard can be used nationally two different ways. 1) Federalize them. 2) Ask the governor nicely to order them to do what the federal government wants them to do. If you federalize them, you run into restrictions like the Posse Comitatus Act. The California governor declining option two, but he couldn't block option 1.

4) Sanctuary cities are absolutely not in defiance of federal law. Immigration law there applies as well as it does anywhere else. The feds are in charge of enforcing immigration law. They ask that local police help them by turning over anyone who is in the country illegally. But that's all it is, a request. There's no law saying they have to help. Sanctuary cities just choose not to help.

Nullification would mean that any federal law (the Constitution isn't federal or state law, it's above them both) can be ruled invalid within the state by the state. This is clearly unconstitutional and has been declared such every time it pops up its dumb, ugly head. But it's different from the already-existing separation of powers that reserves some powers to the states.

 

Some people think this guy is smart- that's the part I will never understand.
On some level I can come around to understanding the support. He mirrors their anger.
But low character and dearth of intelligence is a rare combination in a leader, in any part of the world.

 

Hondo-
A constitutional convention in my lifetime is one of my nerd fantasies, but I am under no impression it is likely to happen.

 

There actually is a movement to invoke a convention of states to rework it. Conservatives, and talk show host Mark Levin in particular, are big advocates of it and have been working toward it for a long time.
Personally, I think that's a disaster if it were ever to happen, especially given our current political climate. You'd have more awful and contentious ideas as logical fixes that would come out of it.

 

Let's have the fucking constitutional convention already, and when it breaks down into intractable differences, just balkanize this shit already.

 

Are you sure you don't mean balticize this shit already?

 

Does anyone who has followed Trump think this is really about Forest management?