California governor to create Texas-like law to ban assault weapons
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I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate? I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
City ordinance typically doesn't apply outside city limits, same with county and state laws. Texas cant outlaw anything nationwide.
> I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate?
The Constitution is 'the law of the land'[1]; whenever local law conflicts with constitutional and federal law, local law loses. So when the constitution grants the populace a right, the state and city cannot take it away.
The function of the Supreme Court in this case is to adjudicate these disputes as the final court of appeals, and strike down any law found to be in violation of the Supremecy clause via judicial review[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_the_United_...
Different branches of government have different powers. The supreme courts gets to decide if this is a federal or state issue. There would be no body who could resolve a conflict if this court didn't exist.
"Precedent" applies in courts, not in legislatures. A small town may decide that X is legal or illegal, and the validity of that declaration depends on its scope.
Speed limits? Go right ahead.
Banning religious or ethnic minorities from city limits? Not a chance.
Higher levels of government generally override lower levels of government. A state law absolutely wins versus a local resolution, for example. A federal law usually wins over state law, but the federal government has limited jurisdiction over local matters. The federal government can't make it illegal (for example) for a state to teach creationism in public schools, but it can make federal funding contingent on it. That's a carrot rather than a stick.
The US constitution sits at the highest level of the hierarchy, and no government may enact laws that conflict with it. This is (mostly) where the Supreme Court comes in.
At the moment, a limited right to abortion is constitutionally protected. However, the argument behind the Texas law is that it isn't infringing on the right, it's just allowing people to sue each other about it (whereupon the individual case will need to be heard separately and possibly appealed). Constitutional rights apply against governments, not individual people.
The proposed California law would apply this reasoning to firearms, which is another constitutionally-recognized right.
From here, you can see why critics of this technique are worried. If it's okay for people to sue each other over the exercise of otherwise-protected rights, then that can frustrate the very existence of those rights.
> I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
That first part of your claim -- an unelected body interpreting the constitution -- is exactly what's happened. The right to carry firearms comes from the second amendment, and the right to abortion derives from the right to privacy that is implied by (and necessary for) the Bill of Rights; the reasoning ultimately comes from Griswold v Connecticut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut), which held that married people have a right to use contraceptives if they wish.
If you waited for federal interests to align weed would still be illegal and probably never get legalized or only much later. Same with Gay marriage.
You also have the issue with if the fed is making all of the rules are they going to send money to cover those additional costs or provide the services themselves if they don't it puts poor/rich states on different footings. You would need to look at equalization payments.
Canada does a version of equalization but in reality one or two Provinces cover the costs for the rest. If another Province has a good year they lobby to change the formula to exclude that income. How would that work for the US? New York, California basically give 500 million a year to mostly poor red states to pay for services? I can't see that working well.. because if the next group in Washington starts enacting hard right laws (everyone gets a free gun) California has no power to enact different laws and they have to pay for everyone's guns.
The other problem is companies would leave California and move to a poor state with better company tax laws and services.
It’s all a delicate balancing act between federal interest, states interests, and peoples’ rights. The Court is upsetting the balance that had been achieved and a new equilibrium will occur.
Wouldn't deeply entrenched business interests resist this tooth and nail as I am sure many supply chains are interdependent on several states.
Besides, wasn't it Ulysses Grant and Abraham Lincoln who believed that preserving the union would save more lives in the end as if there were two countries in the same subcontinent, war would be inevitable over the centuries (in a manner similar to European wars that had been happening for almost a millennia at that point). Don't the leaders realize that simple fact?
Plus assuming the split is the same as before, minorities will suffer terribly. Back then, it was the slaves who got the worst of it but now America has become a melting pot of all cultures. What will happen to those people?
And the allies of America will be left to fend for themselves such as Taiwan, Ukraine, Japan , India etc?
Honestly, I presume that common sense will prevail and nothing will change hopefully, such as Roe v Wade not being overturned.
Federal > State > Municipality > Family > Individual
In the case of the article and the Texas law, it's Federal vs State, and State should trump the former. This is good because it encourages competition between states and doesn't cause lock-in for families and individuals - much in the same way that any business competes.
If Texas laws and values don't jibe with me, I can live in and support another state that does. Same goes for municipality, family, and individual - you can live in a different village, you can sever familial relations and form new ones, you can change your habits, actions, place of employment, etc.
The grandparent poster is arguing against the doctrine of incorporation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...). Prior to the Civil War, the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights were read to apply specifically against the federal government.
However, the thirteenth amendment (banning slavery) explicitly overrides state jurisdiction. The fourteenth amendment guarantees due process and equal protection of the law, and this is the usual route by which the other rights guaranteed under the Constitution have been extended to apply against state law.
In recent decades, this question has been settled so thoroughly that an anti-incorporation stance is a radical reinterpretation of the relationship between the federal and state governments.
And here we are.
Many of the things we see as status quo were originally radical changes. If this tendency toward decentralization persists over the next 50 years a move back toward centrality will be considered radical too.
It's good to have many sovereigns so that people can see the effects of different value sets, learn from them, and express preference by moving or attempting to change their corner of the world. It's a pro-choice position, really.
Basic human rights are not a wish.
And worse, there are weasel words and carve outs that basically nullify it if the state deems it appropriate. This is how nations like Cuba can be proud signatories.
But if you are asking for my beliefs, then no, rights are downstream of duties. For example, your right to free speech presupposes a duty on others to not punish you for your speech. Your right to housing presupposes a duty on others to provide you with housing. Your right to freedom of religion presupposes a duty on others to not discriminate against you for your religion and to make good faith accommodation for your religion, etc.
Different cultures will have different answers to this question which will be localized and not universal, as well as different capacities to impose these duties. Moreover, alienating you from these rights is quite easy, as it only requires abandoning the corresponding duties. So rights are clearly not inalienable.
At least this is my view - but you asked, so I tried to answer in good faith. I'm not going to argue with you if you have a different view, because again, this is localized to which culture/tradition you belong to.
Is that really something conflicts with a lot of cultures and religions?
If we do not have some basis by which we act toward each other as humans then anything goes, and you can justify that anything with culture or religion or aliens or whatever it doesn't really matter. On some level we as humans all have the same basic needs like food, water, and shelter, independent of culture and religion.
Yes, it does. That's a product of post-war liberalism that isn't even really believed that much in the West anymore - and was always aspirational in nature. It didn't even last 5 years, TBH, before the US, Europe and the USSR began funding various racial wars in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Today there are lot of people in the West who believe in things like inherited guilt, collective guilt and punishment, and a hierarchy of who has more dignity versus someone else. Then go to the Islamic world, orthodox jewish world, China, Africa, and even other parts of Asia, and you will not find a lot of people agreeing that everyone in the whole world, esp. enemy tribes, or nearby members of rival societies, are born free and equal in dignity and rights, or that they are part of any kind of global brotherhood.
In terms of the last paragraph, suffice to say that I disagree with the conclusions and assumptions, as I don't think it's a realistic or viable description of human relationships, and has historically caused more harm than good because it ends up being used as yet another reason to attack and divide people. The 20th Century was famous for, in addition to the usual racial and economic wars, introducing things like class and ideology as other dimensions to wage war on. So it's like the XKCD cartoon where you see 11 standards and decide to introduce a universal new standard, and you just end up with 12 standards.
This will be a poison pill: should a stacked supreme court effectively reverse abortion rights by allowing the Texan abortion law to stand - then all states can effortlessly clog the system with similar laws for anything they please. It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine - which will just lead to a similar indirect laws being brought on loop.
The Court should interpret the law and the constitution as it is written. If that enables an undesirable result, then the legislative branch can take corrective action.
Either the Texas law is legal or it's not. It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix the legality of an undesirable result just as it's not their job to decide what an undesirable result is.
To what degree does the Supreme Court fix existing legislation and to what degree do they pass work back to Congress? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
What textual strategy should the Supreme Court choose to interpret laws? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
I disagree with this statement. Justices may be ideological, but they aren't idiots. They know that they will lose any possible shred of legitimacy the court has left if they are that open about their hypocrisy. Indeed, the biggest concern that conservative justices expressed during the hearing on the Texas law was whether it would allow any constitutional right, especially gun rights, to be invalidated in this manner.
Justices may be ideological, but they know they need to craft their rulings to appear non-political in order to uphold their legitimacy (Roberts has been especially clear about this).
There is no prohibition or sanction from the state to a non-accredited investor, a US resident can invest in anything if they figure out how to. The way you use your money is a form of constitutionally granted expression in the US, with enforcement relying on the 14th amendment and would not be able to separate or prohibit investors in a form of caste system.
But the same outcome is achieved as private businesses raising capital (and the broker dealers) are the ones that face the potential liability from the state, (exacerbated by the much higher likelyhood of poor people complaining about their money to regulators or launching their own private litigation), and so the intermediary therefore enforces the accredited investor prohibition on behalf of the state in a way that is likely much more distributed and effective than the state could ever do itself.
The model of law has always has always been an endrun around the constitution, and maintains a durable consensus.
It is interesting to see people just now getting inspired by this form of law, due to the less obscure topics they are covering.
As you describe this it is very different in effect from the Texas law, in that SB-8 does not require any particularized injury of the plaintiff. If you don't need to be injured to sue successfully, the litigation pressure is vastly more intense because anyone can pursue it, and the fines are more than sufficient motivation.
The Texas abortion law basically deputizes anyone in the state to be an "abortion tattler", except for state officials who are expressly prohibited from enforcing the law. That "innovation" is what is fundamentally new about this law and why some argue it evades federal judicial review, and that seems very different from accredited investor laws.
Actually, I don't think they are required to be in the state of Texas. At least, all the descriptions of the bill I have seen have not mentioned that requirement.
Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Heartbeat_Act
The first I heard about this was here on HN, and until this was flagged there were good, useful comments that taught me something new (e.g. the accredited investor one for me).
For comments, it's binary - over the threshold flagged hides it from people not using showdead and disables replies to it.
That's definitely not vague at all.'Good luck to Gavin', personally i think he's delusional if he expects any success from this,besides further polarizing California.Also this is not a Texas-like law for obvious reasons
Stopping the war on drugs sounds grrat, but it also sounds like the reporting here is biased.
To an extent there's a link, both acts are about bodily autonomy and personal choice, but one is a right and the other a crime, federally. Allowing any random person to sue for cash for the thing that is allowed vs regulating and taxing the sale of forbidden substances seem wildly different.
A big focus of the Supreme Court arguments was that if the Texas law was allowed to stand, then any constitutional right, especially gun rights that are near and dear to conservatives, could be ignored in this manner, and that was the line of argument that appeared to have the biggest impact on more conservative judges like Kavanagh.
CA doing this is basically a warning to SCOTUS justices that if they allow the Texas law to stand, it's game on.
I think California may face a more difficult argument since 2nd Amendment rights are in the Constitution, but Roe v. Wade is just court precedent.
That said, it depends on how the law they propose to inact will work. The right to own a firearm is not the same as the right to manufacture or sell a firearm. They might drive firearm manufacturing and sales out of state, but not be able to prohibit someone buying a firearm out of state and bringing it home.
That's a distinction without justification. Constitutional rights are basically however the Supreme Court interprets them.
With respect to gun rights, there has been a long debate over whether the 2nd amendment applies to any individual, or just to "a well-regulated militia". The only reason it applies to any individual is because that's how the court interpreted it (and more recently than Roe v Wade) - through "court precedent", as you say.
Good point.
That distinction is more artificial than I perceived it.
Fine reasoning, except it's already open. SCOTUS allowed the law to stand. Any barrier to laws of that type will have to come from the US Congress or the state legislatures.
They declined to issue an injunction to block the law until the case is decided. They have not yet ruled on the merits of the issue.