So let’s say the hypothesis portion of this conditional does come to pass, and Moore makes good on his threat. How would the federal government enforce the SCOTUS’s ruling? We saw with Brown v. BOE they sent federal troops to escort black children into formerly white schools. But this seems more complicated.
Would they send troops to arrest Moore, or at least escort him from the building? Who then would take his place? If the resistance were more widespread, to various county offices, would they dispatch troops along with federal bureaucrats of some sort to oversee or take the place of the county officials who give out marriage licenses?
This has already happened. Moore already was stripped of his office once for the same crime. Now, if Alabama didn’t handle it internally, then, yes, Federal troops might show up. Or they might not - remember, this depends on the whims of the Federal government. It isn’t required by law to respond with force the moment any state thumbs it’s nose at Federal law. That’s why they are currently letting all the pot sales and smoking in Colorado and Washington slide.
He does not follow SC precedant, they will simply summerily reverse his judgement. After it has happened enough times they will send a reference to whatever body is incharge of judicial misconduct in Alabama. If the latter does not do that themselves.
Why would troops be needed? Unless he is disobeying and actually obstructing a SC order rather than refusing to adhere to binding precedent.
Roy Moore isn’t really involved in this issue, despite his attempts to make it look like he is. Most counties are now issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and he hasn’t been able to do anything other than comment about it.
By almost any measure, Alabama is more dependent on federal funding and support than most, ranking around 47-50 in most such indices (with #1 needing the least federal support). Some states might be far enough at the other end of the spectrum to tell DC to get stuffed and survive just fine; Alabama is not one of them.
So beyond all short-term and localized police/national guard/federal involvement, the feds only have to rattle the cashbox a tiny bit to force compliance… from the torch mobs, if it gets that far.
And it’s not a single-location situation like the George Wallace one, where the kids had to go to that school. All couples have to do is find a county where the judge will issue them their marriage license.
More like the situation with black people registering to vote – eventually, the Federal government sent in deputized Registrars to record voter registrations. If certain county judges are obstinate enough to keep on following Roy Moore, the Feds could send in deputized officials to issue marriage licenses and couples will just bypass these stubborn judges, get their licenses, and get married despite them.
In effect, they can stand forlorn in the schoolhouse door, while people go in & out via the side doors.
I doubt that would be constitutional, but even if it were, it’s unlikely it would happen. Why would the feds punish the citizens of Alabama for the actions of a judge?
And yet you’d be amazed at how much “We should stop paying taxes to the fed’al gubmint!” talk appears not just in internet comments but by some of the posturing asses in the legislature.
Not the same thing. That was an act of the legislature, not the judiciary. How do you get a Republican controlled Congress to withhold funds to make a state comply with a judicial order concerning SSM? Also the highway funds are related to the activity involved-- namely, an effort to cut down on drunk driving accidents. Imagine if the feds decided to cut off Food Stamp funds to states that did not enact 21-year-old drinking age laws.
Note condition number 3 in this SCOTUS decision. I suppose the feds could cut of subsidies for wedding cakes…
What matters is that the practice is in line with the Constitution, not the laws on the books. States still have unconstitutional laws against blasphemy and sodomy still on the books, but they aren’t enforced so they might as well not be. Nobody gets prosecuted under them, hence nobody’s rights in those areas are violated. Hence, nobody really cares. Alabama can have whatever laws they want on the books as long as they don’t try to enforce the unconstitutional ones.
Delaware, Kentucky, and Mississippi didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until 1901, 1976, and 1995, respectively. That’s not really the same case as the above, because the 13th Amendment became a law “on the books” in those sates anyway as soon as 27 states ratified. However, it’s an interesting fact I found out while researching this post, so I’m going to throw it in.
The prohibition against interracial marriage was only removed from Alabama’s constitution in 2000 - and it still states “separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race” - ballot measures to remove the language were defeated in 2004 and 2012.
I think that the connection between highway funds and drinking age to be pretty weak, as the minority position on that case did. Regardless and with all due respect you put zero imagination into the wedding cake bit. Alabama gets lots of Fed money. I’m sure some poking around could find a few tangentially related funding.
And of course it’s different. The judiciary doesn’t control funds at all. We are talking abiut what the Feds could theoretically do to force compliance. Though unlikely with the current legislature, they could pass a “start following the goddamn law” bill that pulled funds from noncomplying states.
Bear in mind that in practice, “pulling funds from noncomplying states” means cutting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare for residents of those states. That’s where the numbers in computations like the one linked above come from. I am hard-pressed to think that a Democratic Congress would be any more inclined to take such a step.
More realistically, a federal court could order a takeover of a state’s court clerk offices and appoint a special master to administer them directly, the way some courts have done with state prisons, for instance.
Maybe they aren’t enforced on a systematic basis, but sometimes the word never trickles down to all of the institutions that enforce the laws. There have been attempts, which I think stemmed from genuine ignorance at the local level, to enforce laws against flag desecration and sodomy in recent years.
That is more realistic but regarding your first paragraph, there’s also 10 billion in military spending that goes into Alabama. While I’m sure a good portion of that is kind of locked in, is there not some room for political pressure there?