Hacker News Reader

Comment by winter_blue | Hacker News Reader

Yep, that Supreme Court decision severely limits the need to get congressional consent to form interstate compacts.

It would be wonderful if all the progressive/blue/Democratic states in the country could get together, and form an interstate compact for their mutual benefit and advancement.

However it's possible that a Republican-majority Supreme Court, seeing the benefit that's coming out a Democratic interstate compact, could strike it down, with partisan motives (just like they struck down parts of the BCRA with Citizens United, or the Voting Rights Act with Shelby County v. Holder).

View on HN

Highly unlikely. Republicans are for state's rights, and the current president and administration seems especially in favor of it. He basically told the states to get their acts together and put the feds into a mainly supportive role, which is as it should be.

Republicans might claim to support state's rights, but they certainly aren't principled consistent supporters of it.

Just take a drug legalization. Many Republicans have been vehemently opposed to it. Take a look at the Supreme Court decision Gonzalez v. Raich, where Steve Scalia no less, wrote that the feds could interfere with your growing some plants inside your own home for your own personal use.

Remember that the "states rights" movement started as a response to federal action to end segregation. In my personal opinion, Republicans are just for whatever will push their agenda forward, without regard to the moral or ethical depravity involved in doing so.

Democrats, in contrast, are a bit more principled (in my opinion), especially when it comes to protecting the human rights, civil rights, voting rights, and other rights of the non-dominant groups in this country.

My claim on this issue was mainly due to the current administration's relatively pro-state stance in this regard (COVID). I am not insisting that the GOP is universally pro-state. You are right that they are not when it comes to marijuana legalization and some other things (and shame on them for it).

The current administration's position isn't relatively pro-state here though: Trump is on record insisting he can "reopen" the economy over the heads of state governments.

The position on "closing down" (that it was up to states) doesn't tell us anything about the administration's principle in regard to COVID because the administration is willing to change those "principles" very quickly, as evidenced by their current statements (among other actions taken by Republicans)

It's arguable that the position on closing down was based on the desire of the admin that the country remain "open", but was faced with legal/political difficulties in directly applying their desire to the country as a whole. What ever tactic is taken with respect to this Pact, we should be unsurprised if it ignores any "principles" and instead looks to effect the policy that Trump desires to put into place, or the effect on Trump's perception of his authority.

That's true that we can't predict what they'll do in the future.

The current administration is only pro-state inasmuch as it allows Trump to disclaim responsibility for failures while taking credit for successes.

For example, he knew that getting hold of medical supplies and PPE would be difficult, and that the federal government would fail at it, so he put it in the states' hands. He didn't want to be blamed for shutting down the economy and forcing people to isolate themselves, so he allowed the states to decide. But now he wants us to believe that the "heroic" decision to open things back up again will be his, and his alone.

> Remember that the "states rights" movement started as a response to federal action to end segregation.

It's way older and more sinister than that. States' rights was first used to justify the continuation and expansion of the institution of slavery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_...

States Rights go back to even before that, to the original Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Until the US Constitution was ratified the behavior of the union was closer to the EU than the current US government, and the bigger, more powerful states (NY, VA) didn't like giving up their sovereignty.

States Rights was dug up before the Civil War as a continuation of that argument, this time in the context of slavery.

> States Rights go back to even before that, to the original Articles of Confederation and Constitution.

Ah right, I'd forgotten about that. IIRC "What can the federal government do?" was a key question that divided Jeffersonians and Federalists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com