Ignore the feds in what way? As noted, some states already do ignore the federal government in some respects, such as refusing to cooperate with or make data obtained by the state available to ICE. Can you give a hypothetical example or two?
ETA:
Whether individual states have additional oaths, IDK, but as the National Guard is governed at least in part by US Code, they are required to take the same (or at least very similar) oath as other members of the armed forces. They do take on a blurb about the state and governor in addition to the usual United States/President part.
With that said, I’m not sure why it matters. At the end of the day, individuas will do what they want, subject to threat of (and perhaps actual) punishment.
A virginia county, Prince Edward, shut down public schools rather than integrate in 1959. White students got vouchers to pay for private schools, black students got nothing. They did not reopen until a court ordered them to open in 1963. Some black students moved to other places to go to school. They lived with friends, relatives, etc. It was part of Massive Resistance.
I don’t think you grasp the complexity of what you’re wanting the state to do. For example, individual citizens and corporations, not the state, have an obligation to pay federal income and social security taxes. How is the state actually going to go about stopping income tax payments - are they going to forbid businesses from sending their witholdings to the Federal government, and intercept mail from private citizens? Most of this stuff is automated, and the money handling for multi-state businesses may not even happen in California. How will they ‘passive aggressively’ enforce this - are they going to start interfering with interstate electronic communications and blocking mail carriers? That’s ‘aggressive’, not ‘passive aggressive’. What are they going to do about the Federal Employees, including military personnel, in the state who’s money and witholding come directly from the Federal government? What about people who live in more than one state, how much of their tax are they going to not pay?
“Not paying taxes” requires outright aggression against regular citizens, corporations, and/or Federal employees, and is something simply done. Similarly, California ‘offering to pay its own way’ is hugely complicated - how is California going to refuse to pay social security taxes but also refuse to pay social security? And how do you handle the fact that it’s tied to individuals, not the state - does passive-aggressive California plan to take over Social Security Payments for people who worked in CA but move out of the state when they retire?
For the Little Rock Nine, originally the governor ordered the national guardsmen to prevent the black students from attending the high school. As wiki says:
I would imagine a similar situation if the Bear Republic were to try to actually resist. The order federalizing the national guard is a legal order so they would need to follow it.
I’m going to say there’s essentially zero room for what you’re describing. If you have a functioning federal government and a state just stops doing all of the things that federal government commands, the federal government is going to notice it almost immediately and ask the state government what’s going on. At that point, the state government is going to have to make a choice; either declare itself independent or acknowledge that it’s still a part of the United States. There’s no middle ground to dwell in.
The only exception would be if something happened to the federal government and it stopped functioning. Let’s say terrorists blow up Washington and every other major city in the other forty-nine states but leave California untouched for some reason. In a scenario like that all of the things the federal government would normally do wouldn’t be happening and the state of California would effectively have to begin functioning on its own. California would have a de facto independence without having to decide whether it considered itself to be an independent nation or if it was still part of the temporarily non-functioning United States.
I agree. If you live in California and your state government tells you that you can stop paying your federal taxes, you’re going to want to know a lot more. You’ll be breaking federal laws. Is the state government saying it will act to prevent the federal government from enforcing its laws against you? Or will the state government just stand by while federal marshals show up and arrest you?
Doesn’t the US government completely control the California-Mexico border? What if to torpedo independence they just completely opened up the border and let every immigrant that wanted to complete access to California thus creating a new logistical hell for them to deal with?
It happened in that one book where South Korea invades the United States after all, they opened up the entire US-Mexican border to get the National Guard’s hands full as they invaded the rest of the United States.
Out west there are many states where the feds own a large percent of the land.
There is a right wing movement that says only sheriffs have legal rights to enforce laws. Those people don’t even recognize state police or any state laws unless enforced by the local sheriff. Many of them are also white supremacists or neo Nazis. Also a good number of them are members of Christian Identity movement . Most of them live out west.
And note that, under current, decades old and enforced, US law if you are a US citizen you are required to file a tax return and possibly pay taxes even if you don’t reside in the US. Banks have to report information about US Citizens to the IRS, and if they don’t then US banks are forbidden to do business with them which tends to be a big deal(US banks will lose their right to act as banks and face criminal charges). Even if the US government said “Alright, PAifornia is now an independent country”, the people living there would owe US taxes unless they renounced their citizenship.
There really isn’t a lot that the federal government “commands” the states to do. The federal government generally does its own thing with its own workers. The states do their own things individually. The regular business of the federal government doesn’t rely on the states to do very much. The state does not enforce federal law; federal law enforcement agencies do.
In some cases, the federal government’s work requires companies or people in the states to do things. Very often, in fact. Car makers have to build cars that comply with federal safety and emissions standards. Banks have to report suspected money laundering and criminal activity. Citizens have to not grow pot, make crystal meth, or trade in handguns across state borders. If companies or citizens in California do these things despite federal law, I don’t know what California will do to stop the federal government from enforcing the laws as it already does. Pot is probably the best example. Although California won’t arrest people for simple pot possession, the federal government can do so any time it chooses.
There are many areas where states and the federal government cooperate willingly. The national guard (as discussed above) is one example. Medicaid is mostly funded by the federal government and jointly administered along with the states. The federal government gives grants for states to build interstate highways. In order to be eligible for the highway funds, states have to agree to certain things, like a minimum drinking age of 21. If California stops doing those things, it will also give up the highway funds. That is its choice. Many states are currently giving up extra Medicaid funding because they don’t want to expand Medicaid eligibility. Their choice.
The big thing that the federal government commands states to do is protect their citizens’ federal constitutional rights. If states stop doing that, federal courts will order that states do so. If California refuses to comply with federal court orders to respect constitutional rights, the federal courts can start jailing the people responsible for contempt and seizing assets from states as necessary to enforce those orders. What do you propose California will do if federal courts order such actions? If it involves breaking more federal laws, the federal government will respond with more criminal enforcement actions. How do you think “passive” resistance works in this case?
there are people who refuse to pay federal taxes for various nutty reasons. They are pretty much all convicted and some do prison time. Wesley Snipes served 3 years for failing to file returns.
How much of this economy is tied to federal activities? As an example, take a look at the area surrounding LAX and count the defense contractors. Multiply this across the state and I suspect that the economy figures goes down a bit.
Also consider that this work and these jobs are not exportable, Northrup Grumman and their ilk cannot decide to move a great deal of development to India or China.
As Pantastic pointed out, the Feds collect Federal taxes, and as you say, individuals and businesses pay them. Is CA going to actively prevent the Feds from prosecuting Californians who refuse to pay income tax? If not, I don’t really see what CA would be doing that would actually change anything in the Federal-state relationship. A state can say it’s seceding, but until it does something that throws a wrench into the Federal-state relationship (like SC firing on Ft. Sumter), it’s just words.
ETA: Looks like Tired and Cranky already said pretty much the same thing.
And how much is dependent on open trade with the US? Putting tariffs, customs, need for travel/work VISAs, and the like on all traffic coming to and from the US would put a big dent in the CA economy. People would be less likely to use CA ports for shipping in the long run and the US would build up alternate ports in a controlled area as it would be more expensive and inconvenient. All of that agriculture commerce going back and forth suddenly gets more difficult and expensive, and there well might be more ‘buy American’ on agricultural goods. A newly minted California might be able to join NAFTA, but there’s no guarantee of it, especially if the exit is a ‘fuck you!’ ‘no, fuck YOU!’ cycle.
I think we’re just looking at a semantic difference here. The federal government commands the states in the sense that the federal government can tell the states it is enforcing a federal law within the states and no state can say no.
So if California told its citizens that they could stop paying federal taxes and the United States government enforced federal laws by arresting people in California who were not paying their federal taxes, it would reveal the pretense of California’s declaration. The only way the declaration would have any meaning is if California took some steps to actively prevent federal officials from acting within California.
That’s a step beyond merely “ignoring” the federal government; that’s actively resisting the federal government. So I stand by what I said; there’s no middle ground where a state can passively be independent. A state has to either be actively independent or not independent at all.
Isn’t this exactly what Sanctuary States and Sanctuary Cities are doing? Ignoring Federal laws? If so, then the answer to the question is, the Federal Government isn’t doing much at all. If they tried to withhold funding as coercion, it would certainly end up in court.
There are no federal laws explicitly criminalizing or penalizing municipal or state sanctuary actions. Most of the movement has been bluster regarding executive orders of unknown enforceability.
No. Sanctuary cities are not in general ‘ignoring’ laws in the sense of disobeying laws, they are declining to enforce federal laws themselves, declining to share information that some federal agencies want, and declining to hold and turn people over to federal authorities without a warrant or court order. There are things that the DOJ, ICE, and other agencies want local and state LEOs and governments to do, but there is no law compelling them to do so, and such a law would probably run afoul of constitutional issues.
The Federal government can’t withold ‘funding’ in general, like highway money or social security paymenrs, as there are laws dictating how those funds are distributed. Also the agencies that distribute those funds don’t typically answer to ICE and other immigration agencies or to the DOJ; someone from ICE telling them not to send money to city X means as much to their actions as me telling them to send money directly to me. There are some specific grants from the Justice Department that are semi-discretionary, and those grants have been withheld in some cases (see link below). So the Federal government has opted to withhold specific funding as leverage, it has gone to court, and has been ruled that they can do so with that sort of money.
Unlax. Won’t be no Calexit anytime soon, nor any other secessions - unless Unforeseen Events occur. If a false-flag attack or other manufactured excuse provokes a presidential declaration of martial law, might states resist such a fruit of false pretenses? Can the military be trusted to obey federal orders?
What might drive the breakup and balkanization of the US, besides the nuking of DC? Might a POTUS waging legalized war on states that voted for rivals justify unilateral divorce?