Remember how many Republicans spent the Obama years brandishing pocket-sized copies of the Constitution as if it justified each and every thing they believed? Yeah. About that. Texas Republicans have a blatantly unconstitutional proposal to lay the groundwork to let them ignore what’s constitutional whenever they please:
A proposal in the GOP-led Legislature would allow Texas to ignore federal law and court rulings and forgo enforcing national regulations. Arizona already has approved a similar policy, and other states want to follow suit, despite the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which stipulates federal laws and treaties take precedence.
State Rep. Cecil Bell’s Texas Sovereignty Act allows for overriding federal laws through the same process as passing a bill. First a legislative committee, then the whole Legislature, would vote for nullification, and then the governor would sign his approval.
“This is an effort to establish how states can say, ‘No, you can’t do that in our state,” said Bell, a Republican from Magnolia, about 45 miles north of Houston.
The idea is that Texas could say “screw you” to the Supreme Court—on marriage equality, for instance—and Congress whenever it likes. Which the Constitution addressed directly in a little thing called the Supremacy Clause:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Will Texas Republicans pass this giant “f*ck you” to the Constitution? Stay tuned.