this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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Illinois could start charging exorbitant tolls to Trucks to enter or leave the state and extra fees to planes coming or going to red states in order to replace any revenue lost from the federal funding. California could start charging export fees to states that don't follow climate requirements. DC could start charging security fees to the federal government and require politicians and scouts to pay for personal armed escorts wherever they go.
Almost all of that is very obviously extremely unconstitutional and would get injuncted well before it could possibly get anywhere near implementation.
Come enforce it then.
If you ignore federal court orders you will go to federal prison.
They will absolutely enforce that. States do not have the authority to charge export taxes.
There's going to arrest an entire state?
They would (and would be correct to) arrest every government official who refuses to comply with the federal order for contempt of court. It's not a difficult enforcement.
And the businesses would obviously refuse to pay illegal taxes.
If you come into a state and break the law the police would be obligated to do their jobs and arrest you for not paying and seize your shipment.
Constitutional crisis speedrun any%
That's not at all how any of this works. That's not even how tax enforcement works.
Police officers who violate a federal order telling them that they are not allowed to enforce illegal taxes will also go to federal prison. The federal government can, will, and should tear state agencies blatantly ignoring explicit federal court orders to pieces.
Woah woah....are you saying we could actually crack qualified immunity?!
Because if we can, it might be worth it.
Like all the states currently ignoring the federal drug classification for cannabis.
It's not the same thing. The federal government probably can shut down any dispensary they want, but has made no effort to do so, largely because their actual authority to prohibit substances that don't cross state lines is not supported all that well constitutionally. That would likely end up in a lengthy legal battle either way. But it likely wouldn't require state agencies to actively enforce federal law, because there's no legal basis to force proactive law enforcement like that. (They can force action in other scenarios, eg forcing states to issue marriage certificates to gay couples, but the drug laws we're talking about don't dictate anything like that, and again, the actual authority behind regulating substances behind state lines is questionable at best.)
The fact that interstate commerce is explicitly entirely federal authority and that the Constitution explicitly prevents states from restricting it most ways makes it so there are no meaningful legal questions to an action like taxing exports. That ruling would be immediate, and anyone attempting to enforce it would be doing so in direct violation of a federal court order. There's plenty of legal basis to prohibit an action by a state that violates the rights of others.
And the federal government would absolutely make it a priority because states crippling interstate commerce would destroy the economy.