Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
All elected officials in Arizona take the following oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of __________ according to the best of my ability, so help me God.”
And yet the Arizona legislature is populated by Neoconfederate insurrectionists who have violated their oath of office and are actively engaged in acts of domestic insurrection against the United States government.
Their leader is Arizona's de facto governor, Sen. Russell Pearce, a self-described constitutional law "expert" (he is not). His latest act of domestic insurrection against the United States government is a revival of the long since settled question over "nullification," the theory under which states can "nullify" laws of the federal government with which they disagree. EJMontini – Arizona to secede (without OFFICIALLY doing so):
Members of the state Legislature, including Arizona's de facto governor, Senate President Russell Pearce, have introduced a bill that essentially would have Arizona secede from the union without having to do so officially.
Really.
It's called SB1433, (See it here.) It creates a 12-member committee within the legislature that could "vote by simple majority to nullify in its entirety a specific federal law or regulation that is outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal government…"
Committee members themselves would decide this, then pass along their recommendation to the full Legislature. If, in turn, a majority of state lawmakers go along with the committee then, according to the bill, "this state and its citizens shall not recognize or be obligated to live under the statute, mandate or executive order."
The nullification committee also would be permitted to review all existing federal laws to see if our legislative geniuses want to toss them out as well.
The nullificiation theory has been around since the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution and was first articulated by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 (in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts). But the theory was expressly rejected in the U.S. Constitution in the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, Clause 2:
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, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
It was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina in his "South Carolina Exposition and Protest" who carried the nullification theory of "states' rights" to its extreme. Calhoun proposed the theory of a concurrent majority through the doctrine of nullification — "the right of a State to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government, within its limits," in objecting to the tariff acts of 1828. (Calhoun differed from Jefferson and Madison in explicitly arguing for a state's right to secede from the Union, if necessary, instead of simply nullifying certain federal legislation.) John C. Calhoun – Wikipedia.
In 1832, "states' rights" theory was put to the test in the Nullification Crisis, after South Carolina passed an ordinance that nullified federal tariffs. The tariffs favored northern manufacturing interests over southern agricultural concerns. The South Carolina legislature declared them unconstitutional. Calhoun had formed a political party in South Carolina explicitly known as the Nullifier Party.
In response to the South Carolina move, Congress passed the Force Bill, which empowered the President to use military power to force states to obey all federal laws. Jackson sent US Navy warships to Charleston harbor. South Carolina then nullified the Force Bill. Tensions cooled after both sides agreed to the Compromise Tariff of 1833, a proposal by Senator Henry Clay to change the tariff law in a manner which satisfied Calhoun, who by then was in the Senate.
Shortly after John C. Calhoun's death in 1850, his books Disquisition on Government, which elaborated on his doctrine in his South Carolina Exposition and Protest, and Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States were published. His "states' rights" theories served as the intellectual basis for Southern secession from the United States and directly led to the American Civil War.
It was 150 years ago this April that this country embarked upon a bloody Civil War to settle this issue once and forever.
Following the Civil War, a Republican Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment which reiterated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and made it abundantly clear that Calhoun's "states' rights" theory is expressly rejected:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The founding fathers of Arizona's Constitution also included the federal supremacy clause in the Arizona Constitution, Article 2, Section 3: "The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land."
Sen. Russell Pearce's regular violations of his oath of office and his acts of domestic insurrection against the United States government are sufficient cause for his removal from office. Anyone supporting this act of insurrection against the United States government should be removed from office forthwith.