Mark Pulliam, a retired attorney and Misrule of Law blogger, said a series of nullification bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly are not constitutional despite seemingly being an “easy fix” to federal overreach.
“A lot of people these days come up with these theories and solutions of problems that sound good, that seem like it’s an easy fix, but they’re just not, at the end of the day, serious, and in some cases not workable, and in some cases not constitutional, and this whole nullification movement…is an example of one of those, I think, shamiracle solutions,” Pulliam (pictured above) explained on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
One bill in the Tennessee Senate, SB 2775, would establish “processes by which the general assembly may nullify an unconstitutional federal statute, regulation, agency order, or executive order.”
The bill called the Restoring State Sovereignty Through Nullification Act, was introduced last year; however, it failed to make it out of the State and Local Government Committee.
On Monday, the bill was deferred to Summer Study.
Last year’s version of the bill was deemed “constitutionally infirm” by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who added the following in his opinion of the bill:
The separation-of-powers doctrine set forth in article II, sections 1 and 2 of the Tennessee Constitution prevents the General Assembly and the governor from nullifying “unconstitutional federal action.” And the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prohibits state legislation aimed at increasing the limited authority of state courts to nullify unconstitutional federal action.
“We have a constitution that has a supremacy clause that says federal law is supreme over state law, and that’s been the law, it’s been in the constitution since it was ratified,” Pulliam explained, noting how the best way to solve conflict in regards to federal law is through the courts.
“The way to solve conflicts between states and federal laws that states disagree with is you get your attorney general, and we have a very capable attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, to go to court and challenge these things,” Pulliam said.
“We have to have a system where if the federal government makes a rule, it’s the rule. It’s binding on the states unless and until a state goes to court and gets somebody to determine that it’s not a valid action. Sometimes these things take time,” Pulliam added.
Pulliam went on to clarify that while he, personally, thinks that the “federal government has become the deep state,” it is a serious problem that requires a “serious solution.”
“I’m not defending the leviathan that the federal government has become the deep state. All of these things are serious problems, but serious problems require serious solutions. [Nullification] is not a serious solution,” Pulliam said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Mark Pulliam” by Mark Pulliam.
