Political Hot Potato
One of the goals of the Tea Party movement over the last two years has been to bring the issue of state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws back into the political mainstream. Many states have passed various resolutions and bills aimed at nullifying this or that federal law based on the 10th Amendment’s limitations on what Washington can do.
While state-level nullification got a bad rap during the Civil Rights movement due to several Southern states trying to use it to prevent the integration of their public schools, President Obama’s inauguration gave it new life as states like Montana and Wyoming passed Firearms Freedom Acts. These laws stated that firearms produced and kept within the borders of those states cannot not be regulated under federal law. By staying within the state, these firearms are outside the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Since the passage of ObamaCare, many states with Republican majorities in their legislatures turned their attention to passing laws to nullify what most on the political right consider an unconstitutional requirement to purchase health insurance. During last year’s mid-term elections, Republicans promised that if they got control of the General Assembly, North Carolina would follow suit.
Sure enough, the Protect Healthcare Freedom Act was the second bill filed at the start of the current session of the General Assembly. The bill states that ObamaCare is null and void within the borders of North Carolina, that attempts at enforcement provide legal grounds for North Carolinians to sue the federal government, and instructs Attorney General Roy Cooper to join the 26-state lawsuit to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional.
The bill proceeded quickly, over loud objections from Democrats, passing the House on February 2nd, the Senate on February 23rd, and was sent to Governor Perdue the next day.
That’s when the real fun began.
The bill serves Republican strategy on several levels. Passage fulfilled a campaign promise made by Phil Berger and Thom Tillis, something alert Tea Party activists are watching Republicans like hawks to ensure they do. It also puts Bev Perdue and Roy Cooper in an awkward position. With the DNC coming to Charlotte next year, they’re forced to choose between defending the number one priority of the leader of their party, or fulfilling their oaths of office and enforcing a law passed by the duly elected members of the General Assembly. There is absolutely no way for them to do both.
That doesn’t mean that Bev Perdue didn’t still try to have her cake and eat it, too. Her initial reaction to the bill landing on her desk was to do … nothing. Her early statements said that she did not want to veto the bill. Perdue knows how unpopular ObamaCare is in North Carolina, how low her own poll numbers are, and that she’s been identified as the most vulnerable Democratic governor in the nation. However, she also refused to sign it, not wanting to incur the wrath of The One. In her mind, pretending the bill didn’t exist seemed an elegant solution. The bill will become law within 10 days absent a veto, and then become Roy Cooper’s problem.
On Friday, Cooper caught the hot potato, and threw it right back at Bev. Unwilling to oppose the bill alone, Cooper wrote a pointed memo to Perdue stating that, “State legislatures cannot pick and choose which federal laws the state will obey.” He went on to say that parts of the bill are “unenforceable” and will endanger federal money for Medicare and Medicaid on which North Carolina depends.
Now that Cooper has put her in the position of endangering North Carolina’s federal handouts, Bev’s office is singing a different tune. “The fate of the bill is a lot less certain now,” said Chrissy Pearson, the governor’s spokeswoman. “We will ask more questions and confer with the legislative leadership. Clearly, we have some work to do over the next 10 days.”
Regardless of what happens now, HB 2 has fulfilled its political mission for NC Republicans. Not only did it meet a campaign promise, but it’s placed Perdue and Cooper in such an awkward position that they’re racing to see who can throw whom under the bus the fastest. Whoever gets stuck having to directly oppose it will face the wrath of Tea Party voters next November.
One only hopes that Republicans will maintain their newly discovered devotion to states’ rights when a Republican member of the Council of State winds up with a potato to catch. Right now, Glen Bradley’s NC Farmers’ Freedom Protection Act, HB 65, is stuck in the Agriculture Committee. Sources tell this writer that the bill, which would nullify S. 510, the Food Modernization Safety Act, is meeting stiff bipartisan resistance there. Also, Steve Troxler, NC’s Agriculture Commissioner, is quietly signaling that he wants nothing to do with it, either. At issue is the bill’s interpositional language, which not only states that S. 510 is null and void in NC, but also make any attempt at enforcement at Class 1A misdemeanor.
Will the General Assembly’s new Republican leadership defend states’ rights when doing so would put a fellow Republican in Washington’s crosshairs, or will the 10th Amendment turn out to be just another tool to attack Democrats only?
Stay tuned.
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Adam Love is the NC State Coordinator for Campaign for Liberty. The Mission of Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.
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