Asserting State Independence: Use State Police Power to Thwart Federal Laws
Idaho must find more and more ways to assert independence from our corrupt national government. Raul Labrador shows the way.
Clashes between our corrupt national government and decent-enough states like Idaho are bound to multiply. Raul Labrador’s recent action—in fact, just his words promising possible action—point to one way states can oppose coming national encroachments. Attorney General Labrador’s actions were intelligent and well-calibrated to get results.
The controversy arose from the deliberations of the Caldwell School District, which was considering a new gender identity policy. Some Caldwell board members are fanatics, who would push gender identity radicalism no matter what. State Superintendent of Schools Debbie Critchfield, however, put the best construction on everything. They aren's fanatics; they are intelligent cowards. To Critchfield’s lying eyes, Caldwell is considering the new gender identity policies because they were afraid of that feds are going to impose such policies anyway.
This is what Critchfield said:
The federal government does not require districts or charters to adopt such policies. However, schools can be subject to intense federal scrutiny and potential legal risk if they don’t adopt such policies… Based on this reality, local education leaders can find themselves in a no-win situation. They may adopt policies that some patrons find objectionable or risk an onerous federal investigation and legal action.
For the sake of argument, assume Critchfield is right. The feds will assert that tranny rights are national, and no locality can abridge them.
Attorney General Labrador’s reaction was laudable. If gender identity policies allow boys into girl’s showers, he countered the Attorney General, according to federal law, the boys may be violating Idaho law for exposing themselves to people who simply do not want to see (Idaho Code 18-4116 (1)). Enforcing indecent exposure laws is clearly within the provenance of Idaho law or any state’s law.
On the matter of “gender identity” laws and interpretations:
For the feds, boys showering in girl’s showers is equality in affirmation of gender identity.
For Idaho, boys showering in girl’s showers is indecent exposure.
We have a conflict here. Our Attorney General is defending Idaho’s sovereignty with an appeal to its police powers. Such an appeal to state power might indeed conflict with federal law. "Bring it on!" is Labrador's answer. He is taking a stand with the moral high ground on the basis of Idaho law.
Another example of such state resistance to national laws occurred in the years before the Civil War. The national government had taken over supervision of the fugitive slave trade—slave hunters could go into free states, capture the escaped slaves, take the slaves to federal court, and seek an order to return slaves to their masters. This law was both constitutional and a matter of federal right at the time.
Many northern states countered with strong kidnapping laws or personal liberty laws, with prison terms and fines. Slave hunters complained. They got some favorable Supreme Court verdicts (Prigg v. Pennsylvania,1842). States just passed new personal liberty laws, and prosecuted slave hunters under state law, again. The feds could not, at that time, set all the slave hunters free. Meanwhile, the personal liberty laws deterred many slave hunters from entering states with strong laws.
In the case of fugitive slaves:
The feds were exercising power to return fugitive slaves.
The states was ensuring that people were not carried away by force.
States have weapons, if they choose to use them. Debbie Critchfield is for universal disarmament in the service of growing the education establishment. She is who conservatives thought she was. Raul Labrador is for using state powers to protect state independence. He is who we thought he was too.
Let us find other circumstances to assert police powers and Idaho statutes against the all-grasping national government.