Mike Huckabee’s Unintended Consequences

[su_right_ad]On the Hugh Hewitt radio show, we were treated to an unusual interpretation of the judicial and legislative processes courtesy of former Governor Huckabee of Arkansas:

One thing I am angry about, though, Hugh, is this notion of judicial supremacy, where if the courts make a decision, I hear governors and even some aspirants to the presidency say well, that’s settled, and it’s the law of the land. No, it isn’t the law of the land. Constitutionally, the courts cannot make a law. They can interpret one. And then the legislature has to create enabling legislation, and the executive has to sign it, and has to enforce it.

[su_r_sky_ad]As the former governor of Arkansas, you might think that he would know the history of his state:

“The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

It seems that Gov. Faubus thought that the orders from the Supreme Court were not valid, and the President and the National Guard educated him otherwise.

The discredited (by the Civil War, no less) idea of Nullification (that states can nullify federal laws that they disagree with or not enact/enforce them) is not new to Huckabee. Perhaps he is playing semantic games? That the Supreme Court invalidating a law is not the same thing as legislators passing a law?

What wingnuts like Huckabee always forget is that Nullification (if it were possible) could swing both ways. If conservative states can pick and choose which laws that they want to enforce, so could liberal ones. Let’s see how fast Wingnuttia would drop the idea of Nullification if they realized that many states would immediately allow abortion on demand without restrictions.

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D.B. Hirsch

D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.