BATON ROUGE, La. (March 29, 2024) – On Tuesday, the Louisiana Senate unanimously passed a bill that would end state and local cooperation with rules and mandates that may be imposed by international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Sen. Thomas Pressly and two cosponsors introduced Senate Bill 133 (SB133) on Feb. 29. The proposed law declares, “The World Health Organization, United Nations, and the World Economic Forum shall have no jurisdiction or power within the state of Louisiana.”
The bill then takes a practical step to limit their impact in the state by barring state and local cooperation with their rules, regulations, and mandates.
“No rule, regulation, fee, tax, policy, or mandate of any kind of the World Health Organization, United Nations, and the World Economic Forum shall be enforced or implemented by the state of Louisiana or any agency, department, board, commission, political subdivision, governmental entity of the state, parish, municipality, or any other political entity.”
On March 26, the Senate passed SB133 by a 37-0 vote.
EFFECTIVE
Based on James Madison’s advice for states and individuals in Federalist #46, a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” provides an extremely effective method to render federal laws, effectively unenforceable because most enforcement actions rely on help, support, and leadership from the states.
This is just as true when it comes to international bodies – probably more. These institutions have no enforcement mechanism of their own. All of their power is based on voluntary compliance and enforcement by local jurisdictions.
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed this type of approach would be extremely effective. In a televised discussion on federal gun laws, he noted that a single state refusing to cooperate with enforcement would make federal gun laws “nearly impossible” to enforce.
The federal government relies heavily on state cooperation to implement and enforce almost all of its laws, regulations, and acts. By simply withdrawing this necessary cooperation, states can nullify in effect many federal actions. As noted by the National Governor’s Association during the partial government shutdown of 2013, “States are partners with the federal government on most federal programs.”
This enforcement problem is magnified when it comes to international bodies such as the WHO and the UN.
LEGAL BASIS
Some might argue that Louisiana is obligated to enforce WHO or UN mandates due to treaties, but this doesn’t state up to legal scrutiny.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that the federal government can’t commandeer state and local resources for its own purposes. Under the anti-commandeering doctrine, states are sovereign entities and can direct their resources as they see fit. It logically follows that international organizations can’t commander state and local resources either. Even if the U.S. government is obligated to enforce some U.N. mandate based on a treaty, it doesn’t follow that state and local governments must also enforce the same.
The anti-commandeering doctrine is based primarily on five Supreme Court cases dating back to 1842. Printz v. U.S. serves as the cornerstone.
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”
No determination of constitutionality is necessary to invoke the anti-commandeering doctrine. State and local governments can refuse to enforce federal laws or implement federal programs whether they are constitutional or not.
WHAT’S NEXT
SB133 will move to the House for further consideration. It was referred to the Committee on House and Governmental Affairs where it must get a hearing and pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.
Alabama House passes bill restricting DEI initiatives, stirs debate on free speech
 Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, stands on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 8, 2024. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama House Thursday approved a bill that would ban the public funding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and leave teachers or employees who use “divisive concepts” subject to potential termination.
SB 129, sponsored by Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, passed the House on a 75-28 party-line vote, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. It goes back to the Senate for concurrence or a conference committee after the House amended the bill.
The legislation would ban teachers and state employees from compelling others to accept or conform to “divisive concepts.” The bill includes examples of such concepts, like the notion that individuals are inherently accountable for past actions based on their race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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The bill comes after conservative groups and politicians have attacked DEI programs across the country. Florida’s version of the bill, the Stop Woke Act, is currently on hold after a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Appeals Court referred to the legislation as “the greatest First Amendment sin,” as reported by the Guardian Tuesday.
A version of the legislation had been sponsored in the two previous years by Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, but it never received a Senate vote. Oliver said earlier in the session that he wanted the Senate to pass it first so the House would not “kill three days” through filibustering.
“When we look at K-12, the Legislature has complete authority because it’s compulsory — we make kids go to school,” Oliver said. “So it’s our responsibility to make sure that that is a level playing field, and that there are guardrails for my kids, your kids or anybody else’s.”
Democratic House members said the bill rolls back progress made in providing access to opportunities for minorities.
Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmignham, said on the House floor that this is Alabama’s version “of attempting to further kill affirmative action in the state of Alabama.”
“It is allowing our racial ethnicity, and the significance of our skin color, to be slowly stripped away, in every shape, form or fashion,” Givan said.
House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, said in a press conference after the bill’s passage that the bill “is another example that we are trying to continue to divide our state” at a time the state is trying to attract people to “live, work and play.”
“What does this say for our children and grandchildren? This is saying that we are not embracing diversity, equity and inclusion. We don’t pay attention to differences. We are not for differences. We’re trying to limit speech and opportunity for certain communities,” he said.
Daniels said he hopes legal action will follow as it did in Florida.
Rep. Prince Chestnut, D-Selma, added an amendment to the bill that Chestnut said would protect the First Amendment and academic freedom in higher education.
The text before the House on Thursday originally stated that nothing in the legislation “may be construed to inhibit or violate the First Amendment rights of any student or employee, or to undermine the duty of a public institution of higher education to protect, to the greatest degree, academic freedom, intellectual diversity, and free expression, provided that none of these protected tenets conflict with this act.”
The amendment struck “provided that none of these protected tenets conflict with this act.”
Daniels said that he is hopeful that organizations are preparing to file lawsuits.
“Even if we have to file lawsuit about this particular issue, we will,” he said.
House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said in a press conference after the House adjourned that the bill put everyone, regardless of background, on the same level playing field, but that with any piece of legislation, he suggested it could be challenged in court.
“Everything we do has a chance to be challenged in courts. They were set in law for the state, so anytime you do that there’s a possibility. Some probably more than others,” he said.
Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, said that DEI “is not an attempt to exclude you” but an attempt to “address our history head on accepting the truth and work toward a more perfect union that includes all of us.”
Rafferty said that DEI “doesn’t seek to divide” but to bring people together “regardless of our myriad differences to the bounty, to experience the freedom our Constitution guarantees us.”
“We cannot celebrate and honor triumph without first reckoning with the tragic consequences of our history. Like I said, that is going to be uncomfortable, and it should be. But at the end of the day, we cannot experience the light of truth without reckoning with the dark of our past,” he said.
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