Liberal bloggers and some news reporters were fairly critical of conservative Montana legislators last session when they suggested that Montana should simply nullify contentious federal mandates like Obamacare.
Now, as The New York Times reports in a lead column today, the Obama Administration appears to have effectively “nullified” federal education mandates buried in the “No Child Left Behind” law.
Here’s an excerpt: (h/t Politico Playbook)
In just five months, the Obama administration has freed schools in more than half the nation from central provisions of the No Child Left Behind education law, raising the question of whether the decade-old federal program has been essentially nullified.
On Friday, the Department of Education plans to announce that it has granted waivers releasing two more states, Washington and Wisconsin, from some of the most onerous conditions of the signature Bush-era legislation. With this latest round, 26 states are now relieved from meeting the lofty — and controversial — goal of making all students proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Additional waivers are pending in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
Walt Williams was the guest-host for the Rush Limbaugh program yesterday. He said the states opposed to Obamacare should follow suit and simply “nullify” Obamacare.
The Daily Caller has this:
“I think the American citizens ought to press their state governors and legislatures just to nullify the law — just to plain nullify it and say, ‘The citizens of such-and-such-a state don’t have to obey Obamacare because it’s unconstitutional, regardless of what the Supreme Court says,’” Williams said.
Williams cited Marbury v. Madison, which said “all laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void” to further the case for nullification from the states.
My take? There is no need to use the word “nullify.” If you’re a member of the state legislature or a gubernatorial candidate, all you simply have to do is say that you will reject Obamacare in Montana. The Supreme Court of the United States has already made it clear that the federal government cannot punish you for doing so.