Nullification in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has refused to set up healthcare exchanges per Obamacare. He is not alone among limited government, states’ rights executives who refuse to compromise the integrity and liberty of their states and their communities.

Chief Justice John Roberts most likely affirmed the law in order to avoid a political show-down with Congress and the next President. Moreover, just because the Supreme Court deems a law “constitutional” does not necessarily settle the issue, nor muzzle the states to submit. Marbury v Madison, the ruling which authorized the United States Supreme Court with judicial review, was a controversial ruling at its inception, and currently should be revised or perhaps repealed.

Not only justices, but executives in the past have struck down laws which they deemed unconstitutional. President George Washington vetoed laws which he deemed to be “unconstitutional.” Thomas Jefferson impounded appropriations back into the state treasury for the same reason. Andrew Jackson, the President who resisted South Carolina’s call for nullification, stalled passage and rechartering off the First National Bank on the same grounds.

Despite the extreme rhetoric which supports the arrest of federal officials who implement Obamacare, Wisconsin’s Tea Party impulse to assert state sovereignty in the face of President Obama’s overreaching individual insurance mandate is both principled and prescient. The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which safeguards all un-enumerated rights and powers to the states and the people, has received scant respect in recent years. Contrary to the editors’ view, I support Wisconsin’s Republicans for their opposition.