New Arizona law "trumps" Federal authority

Yep. They need to energize their base to GOTV, and even though this will go nowhere it's one more thing they can point to and say, "Look, we tried to do something about it, just like we said we would!" And since it will inevitably be defeated, they can also say, "Those liberal elites in Washington are trampling on states' rights! Vote for us again so we can stop them!"

That's pretty much it, as far as I can tell. Many elections are decided just by how many people you can get voting compared to your opponent, since turnout overall is relatively low. Of course, chances are some of the legislators supporting this really are crazy, but I'd guess the vast majority are doing it for cynical political points. Personally, I think these kinds of tactics are stupid. It's bound to backfire spectacularly eventually.

edited 4th Feb '11 5:05:24 PM by darksidevoid

From a legal point of view, I don't necessarily see the problem - of course you're not supposed to enforce a constitutional law. If the Federal Government passed a law tomorrow that said, for example, that black people and white people had to sit separately in state courts, it would be absolutely the duty of the states to disobey such a law. The notion that federal law trumps state law at all times is a ridiculous concept, just as is the assertion that state law trumps federal law. Now, the state then ought to challenge said law in the courts, but refuse to execute the law until the courts rule one way or another.

edited 7th Feb '11 10:37:04 AM by Cojuanco

What I don't understand is that califorinia pulls shit like this without getting in trouble.

This. And generally, it's not a problem.

edited 7th Feb '11 11:16:40 AM by Cojuanco

That said, wasn't the problem, as well, that Federal authority wasn't doing its job related to the border? Last I know, some guys I know were turned back from areas in Arizona by the National Gurad for their safety. :V

Actually, yes, Federal law does trump state law wherever the two conflict. It's just that the Constitution happens to trump Federal law, so if a Federal law is in conflict with a state law and the United States constitution, it's invalid. In these situations, the courts tend to grant stays on the execution of the laws until their constitutionality can be examined and upheld/struck down, so 'don't carry it out' doesn't come into the question.

That theoretically isn't the argument of nullification (at least after the Civil War), it's whether the Federal law is breaking the Constitution. And the Constitution does leave certain powers to the states.

One of which is not 'determining whether a Federal law is unconstitutional.' That power is typically reserved for the judicial branch. Granted, it's an implied power, which "strict constructionists" have issues with, but frankly I'm not too concerned about that. It's proven to be a pretty darn important one.

In how many state vs federal government cases has the state been held to be morally right? Sure, it's possible to pass an unconstitutional law. But it's unlikely, and the state still shouldn't have the power to disobey. Especially not the kind of disobedience Arizona has in mind.

edited 7th Feb '11 4:16:49 PM by Ultrayellow

My head hurts now.

Not from trying to understand this, but from the fact that my desk is hard.

Chalkos is correct.

Edit:

In how many state vs federal government cases has the state been held to be morally right?

Courts decide legal issues, not moral ones.

edited 7th Feb '11 4:43:28 PM by silver2195

I'm not talking about court cases, I'm talking about historical examples.

The big difference between California and Arizona, assuming we're talking about Cali's medical marijuana law, is that California passes laws with the point of allowing people to do something or preventing people from doing something, whereas Arizona is trying to pass laws with the point of undermining Federal authority.

In other words, California is at least trying to legislate, whereas Arizona is trying to play political games.

-sigh-

If you're going to practice state disobedience of a federal law, at least actually pick a specific law to disobey so you have something to be thumbing your nose about.

@jewel: California did it for political games as well.

If you can get away with it, it's legal. I'm not sure exactly what incident(s) are being referred to in the case of California, but apparently, they got away with it.

I hate california but the political games it plays is not near the top of the list.

I forgot, but San Francisco was going to do something bizarre with its law enforcement in order to piss someone off.

Not surprising. Also, keep in mind the forum you're discussing this on.

salad, what evidence do you have that California's marijuana law was a political game? We didn't do it for the politics, we did it because we love the herb, man. (Disclosure: I don't smoke pot and didn't live in Cali at the time that passed.) Or are you talking about a different law?

We did it because the war on drugs is literally overcrowding our prisons with people who got busted for pot while murders go free because there's no room.

We did it because the war on drugs is a financial ruin, billions being spent on hunting, arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people who simply smoked, possessed, or even sold it.

We did it because the war on drugs is almost literally turning the Mexican border into a warzone, men, women, children, doesn't matter. They're all being killed by Mexican drug cartels that make a damn good profit off of our war on drugs.

Not much of a "Political game" to me.

The reason Arizona doesn't get to play border tricks but California does get to play tricks with marijuana law:

Laws about naturalization and the border are reserved to the federal govt. in Section I, Article 8 of the Constitution, so Arizona or any other state can't make any other laws at all about naturalization and the border. Making laws about marijuana is a commerce thing and so both Congress and California can pass laws about it (long story, I'll explain it if you want).

Now, since federal law does trump state law, if the federal government enforced their laws it would be illegal to sell marijuana in California no matter what California law says. But California police don't have to enforce federal law, and federal police don't bother with finding private citizens smoking marijuana, so medicinal marijuana is de facto legal in California.

@Commando: Everything in your post was either a lie or a falsehood.

the war on drugs is not what caused the issue with the drug cartels, it is related to poor border laws at heart and the lack of enforcement of drug laws with marijuana.

I'm not sure what bizarre world you live in where marijuana is treated seriously here.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:05:23 AM by saladofstones3

Everything in my post is the damned truth and to say otherwise is just ignorant.

And yes, the war on drugs is exactly what has caused the mexican drug cartels not "Poor border control" that's just a dumb republican talking point.

When Mexico followed in Americas footsteps with these policies, drug related deaths shot up dramatically I will not believe the 25,000 drug crime related deaths in mexico over the past 3 years were caused by "Lax enforcement"

Frankly, this is just history repeating itself all over again. The exact same shit happened in the 20's with the mobsters running illegal alcohol thanks to prohibition. Which caused significant increases of crime.

overcrowding our prisons with people who got busted for pot

Not really. Marijuana possession (without intent to distribute) is a misdemeanor.

It is now. That wasn't the case for a long time. And in fact, possessing a sufficient amount can still be grounds for criminal charges.