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States' Rights Flipflop
If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed and seated on the Supreme Court, a hot-button issue that may confront her is that of preemption.
The Bush Administration used a doctrine of implied preemption as legal cover to shield corporations from personal injury liabilities and undermine state health, safety and environmental laws. Simply, the Bushies decided they could just enter a clause into a federal regulation, and poof! State laws they didn’t like went bye-bye.
But recently a Supreme Court decision, and more recently an executive order by President Barack Obama, have tempered this federal intrusion into state legislation. And, naturally, some fire-breathin’, states’ rights lovin’, champions-of-individual-liberty conservative think tanks are very unhappy about it.
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