It’s time for Red States to start nullifying federal law

By Steve Baldwin – March 13, 2021

As we all know, the last election was a “tipping point” election on many different levels. An election won with the use of illegal last-minute changes to state election laws has led to a rogue regime that threatens the very foundations of America.  This is being achieved through highly questionable executive orders, the decimation of the concept of national sovereignty and an attack on fossil fuels, the lifeblood of our economy.  Moreover, Biden is converting our military into a social justice agency and transforming our intelligence services into witch-hunters for conservatives who dared to protest a stolen election.

More alarming is the left’s goal to make its political power permanent by granting amnesty to 20-30 million illegal aliens, granting statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, expanding the Supreme Court, and normalizing the censorship of conservatives, not to mention the institutionalizing of election fraud, especially in key swing states.

There is little doubt, if history is our guide, that should the left achieve permanent political  power, future elections will just become  “show” elections, our 1st and 2^nd Amendment rights will be diminished, if not gutted, and our economy will become permanently stagnant as with all other socialist economies in the world.   It will be the beginning of the end of America as we know it.

A proposal to challenge this attack on our rights

Our Founders, however, were extremely wary of federal power and thus created a number of checks and balances to counter it.  One of them was the ability by the states to “nullify” federal laws and even Supreme Court decisions.   As most conservatives  know, nullification is when a State decides to not abide by a federal law, regulation or even a Federal court ruling by simply refusing to enforce it.  This concept is rooted in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which plainly states that if the states, who are the creators of the federal government, have not specifically given them authority, that authority rests with the states and the people of the state:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Over the last 150 years or so, liberal legislators and judges have violated the Tenth Amendment by illegally expanding the scope and power of the federal government. We know that Federal power is limited because such powers were actually “enumerated” or listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and include actions such as “To lay and collect taxes,” “coin money,” and   “raise and support Armies.”  The federal government was not given any role in education, health, welfare, transportation, energy, or even with maintaining secure borders.  All those issues were left up to the states to decide. If our founders wanted to expand the federal government into every area of our life, they would not have specifically listed the very few powers they granted it.

Conservative constitutional scholars such as Thomas E. Woods, in his book, Nullification, How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21^st Century, documents that our Founders believed that if a “law is unconstitutional and therefore void and of no effect, it is up to the states, the parties to the federal compact, to declare it so and thus refuse to enforce it.”

The left will scream about such nullification efforts, but they have been engaged in nullifying federal laws for years.  For example, all state laws legalizing marijuana are illegal since they’re in conflict with federal narcotic laws, but states have simply refused to enforce these federal laws and so have “nullified” them.  Likewise, states controlled by the left have allowed various cities and counties to become “sanctuaries” in which they refused to abide by federal immigration laws.  And no, the Marines were not sent in nor did any state or city even suffer the loss of federal funding.

It is time our side use this tactic as a way of protecting our constitutional rights. Here are some of the issues that could be affected by the concept of nullification:

1. Nullify all 1st Amendment Restrictions.  States should refuse to enforce all federal edicts and Supreme Court rulings that impinge upon the 1^st Amendment protections of our religious freedom, such as efforts by radical gays to force churches, faith based adopting agencies,  religious schools, colleges, and businesses to carry out a radical gay and transexual agenda.
2. Nullify all federal efforts to undermine the 2^nd Amendment.  States should nullify all federal laws that compromise the 2^nd Amendment such as those being proposed by the Biden team.
3. Nullify open border policies. With Biden announcing his intent to grant amnesty to all illegal aliens, combined with his hostility to border security, expect the border to get  out of control. Already, migrant caravans are heading to the border.  States should nullify such pro-open border policies and use their resources to stop illegal immigration.   The reality is that states were originally involved in setting immigration policy and indeed, used to detain and deport illegals prior to the existence of a Border Patrol or ICE. The only mention in the constitution regarding immigration is “to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.”
4. Nullify the anti-police agenda.  During the Obama regime, his DoJ hamstrung city police departments all over the country with phony “civil rights” investigations, resulting in cities hesitant to arrest or prosecute violent thugs.  With anti-police activists surrounding Biden, his administration will do the same, thereby empowering leftist rioters in our cities. The founders never gave the federal government a law enforcement role as they thought this responsibility best be carried out by local police and sheriff departments.  States should resist and ignore all federal anti-police regulations and DoJ harassment of local police departments.
5. Nullify all federal efforts to preserve fraudulent voting procedures.  Conservative states need to immediately take action on election fraud and pass comprehensive voter ID laws, which, of course, will be attacked by Biden’s DoJ as a “civil rights” violation. States also need to remove the estimated 2-3 million illegal aliens from its voting rolls. Indeed, a fact check site has documented that the millions of illegal aliens are currently voting and may have thrown the election to Biden. States need to stop disenfranchising its legal citizens and also purge from its voter rolls dead people, repeat registrations, and those who moved out of state.

Of course, states will be reluctant to invoke nullification but the alternative would be to watch our constitutional rights be trashed by leftists.  The MAGA movement in the Red States needs to became active in urging legislators and governors to start reclaiming their constitutional powers and begin nullifying illegal Federal law.

Once states are engaged in nullifying federal laws, I believe we will witness what I call the “great migration” in which conservatives will leave blue states to live in red states and vice-versa.  And yes, this could lead to a peaceful balkanization of America in which the Red states become redder and the Blue states become bluer, but this is not our fault.  It is the left that is assaulting our constitutional rights and if conservatives desire to live in states that protect their rights, then so be it.

Already, we are seeing some movement in the states on the nullification front. The Arizona Senate passed a bill that declares it will not enforce federal gun control laws. Oklahoma, South Dakota and North Dakota legislators have all introduced legislation that nullifies Biden’s executive orders.

Nullification is simply returning America to its original system of governance in which most governmental authority is decentralized to the states and counties. The federal government can’t do much about it other than to cut federal funding for some state programs, but perhaps the time has come for states to do away with these federal handcuffs.

American Thinker