GOP lawmakers say ignoring the Supreme Court is 'okay': analysis

Republican lawmakers have recently "crossed a new threshold: by suggesting that it’s okay to disregard the Supreme Court," according to a Monday, January 29 analysis by Washington Post political reporter Aaron Blake.

"The party that once prided itself as the law-and-order side has leaped headlong into highly speculative theories about the 'weaponization' of the justice system, spurred by former president Donald Trump," Blake notes.

The political reporter points to comments from two Republican lawmakers — US Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt — over the last week, in which they encouraged states to ignore court rulings that don't align with their political agendas.

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"After the Supreme Court ruled last week that federal authorities can remove razor wire that Texas put on the U.S.-Mexico border," Blake reports, Roy wrote via X/Twitter, “Texas should ignore it.” Days later, Stitt during a CNN interview said, "We all agree that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. And if the Supreme Court gets something wrong — for example, if they tried to ban and say that we didn’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms — I think the Constitution supersedes somebody in Washington, D.C., telling us, you know."

Blake emphasizes "these kinds of comments certainly lay the rhetorical groundwork for a pretty unthinkable future clash — especially given they come from a party that has demonstrated increasingly little regard for the current application of the rule of law."

Noting that "despite the claims of some on the left, what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is doing right now doesn’t violate what the Supreme Court ruled," the Post reporter writes, "The court overturned a ruling that said the federal government couldn’t remove the razor wire, effectively allowing it to do so; Abbott has signaled he’ll continue to have the National Guard lay the wire, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has rejected the Biden administration’s request for full access to the area."

Blake adds, "Roy’s and Stitt’s comments, then, take this debate quite a bit further. In some ways, it’s a logical extension of the emerging Republican argument about state sovereignty. Anticipating a federal-vs.-state clash, Republicans have taken to arguing that Texas has the authority to defend itself from those crossing the border illegally."

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Furthermore, he emphasizes "we’re getting into dicey territory here. The Supreme Court is the institution we charge with interpreting our Constitution; we now have a sitting U.S. governor and a congressman suggesting it’s okay to ignore what the court says if you have a different interpretation."

Blake's full analysis can be read here.