Mike Huckabee points the way to nullifying Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC: Enforcing the enabling-legislation requirement!
Unlike in Wisconsin, same-sex marriage prohibitions in South Carolina and Wyoming weren’t stricken directly, but rather as a consequence of circuit court rulings against bans in nearby states. And Republicans there are intent on dragging their heels. Rather than accepting defeat, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Wyoming Governor Matt Mead both plan to enforce their state SSM bans to the bitter end. But whereas these governors are probably just playing footsie with nullification, and ultimately plan to issue same-sex marriage licenses when federal judges order them to, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is all in on the idea that Republican governors can continue to stand athwart same-sex marriage until gay people pry the veto pens from their cold dead hands.
“It is shocking that many elected officials, attorneys and judges think that a court ruling is the ‘final word,'” Huckabee said. “It most certainly is not. The courts are one branch of government, and equal to the other two, but not superior to either and certainly not to both. Even if the other two branches agree with the ruling, the people’s representatives have to pass enabling legislation to authorize same sex marriage, and the President (or Governor in the case of the state) has to sign it. Otherwise, it remains the court’s opinion. It is NOT the ‘law of the land’ as is often heralded.”
— The Scariest Reaction to SCOTUS’s Gay-Marriage Bombshell Wasn’t From Ted Cruz, Brian Beutler, The New Republic, yesterday
And to think that for more than four years now we’ve all been treating Citizens United as the final word on those money-is-speech and corporations-are-people things, even though there’s been no enabling legislation enacted by any of the people’s representatives. Silly us.
I totally disagree with Beutler. This isn’t scary at all!
Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law;
Till superstition taught the tyrant awe,
Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid,
And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made
Alexander Pope – Essay of Man
The supreme mystery of tyranny, it’s prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak this fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.
Benedict Spinoza
It’s absolutely stupifying how baldly ignorant of basic structures of American government so many Republican pols are.
I mean … like, wow.