A first-term state lawmaker is pushing legislation he contends will block at least two branches of the federal government from imposing their will on Arizona.
Representative Mark Finchem (R-Tucson) proposed HB 2024, which would forbid the state from using its resources to implement any presidential executive order unless it had been approved by Congress and found to be constitutional.
Finchem said he crafted it even before President Obama announced on Tuesday he is taking executive action to redefine who is a gun dealer and expand requirements for background checks. HB 2024 would also apply the same standard to directives of federal agencies, as well as decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finchem said that, absent congressional action, there is no reason that Arizona should have to do anything-- or use state resources-- to comply with court rulings. In fact, Finchem said it's wrong to even call what comes from the high court a "ruling.'' He said it's just the opinion of the majority of justices in a given case. That includes a decision which concluded states cannot deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"It's a court opinion. It's not yet operable. That means that it has to go back to Congress, Congress has to write an enactment facilitating gay marriage, and the president has to sign the enactment to make it statute," he said.
But Finchem's measure would affect other Supreme Court decisions like one which outlawed laws banning mixed-race marriages-- and even older various decisions overturning state laws which allowed various forms of racial segregation in schools and elsewhere.
Finchem said these are different. "When you mix desegregation with the gay agenda, I think intellectually it's dishonest. They're two very, very different...I know that the gay agenda has tried to adopt that. That is not the same thing," he said.
Finchem has seven other Republicans signed on as co-sponsors for the legislation.