Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Paging Ty: I really didn’t listen in con law. Michigan had a vote to amend its Constitution to make any act that restricts abortion illegal. Can a federal statute violate a State Constitution?
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I think the short answer is that the Supremacy Clause suggests that if the federal government passes a law that requires a result inconsistent with a state constitution, the federal law takes precedence. For example, I believe Wyoming used to elect state legislators from counties (or districts?) which would pick multiple candidates, and my recollection is that the federal government said this was inconsistent with civil rights legislation and forced a change to single districts. Whether or not I have the details right, I think that's the principle.
OTOH, for the federal law to apply, it would have to be enacted under Congress's enumerated powers, and it's not immediately clear to me how one would justify federal regulation of abortion law, which is not the way it works.
Which is to say, it's not clear to me that the answer to your question is so clear that it couldn't be engineered by the Supreme Court according to what conservatives decide the law should be. This Supreme Court seems particularly results-oriented and unbound by the way the law has been understood, especially on the issues that matter most to conservatives.
