The Supreme Court famously does not have its own army. So fight them.

Bless its blue, blue heart, New York showed the rest of the nation how to deal with an out-of-control right-wing Supreme Court tonight when it passed an amendment to the state’s constitution enshrining the right to abortion.  It is the first step in a years-long process that will result in the amendment becoming the supreme law of the land in the state of New York.

In a direct challenge to the Supreme Court’s recent gun decision, the state legislature also passed sweeping bans on carrying firearms in both public and non-public spaces in New York, including subways, parks, buses and other public conveyances, sports stadiums, day care facilities, and colleges.  The law also bans the carrying of firearms on private property unless the owner specifically and expressly allows them.  Lawmakers even added Times Square in New York City to the list in a last-minute move.

Clearly addressing the notation by Justice Scalia in his decision in Heller that reasonable firearms restrictions can be imposed by the states, the new gun law establishes stiff requirements for obtaining a license to carry firearms in the state, including two hours of training in the shooting of a weapon on the firing range, 16 hours of safe-handling training, a written exam similar to the one required to obtain a driver’s license, and an in-person interview with a state official.  New York has written its own super-deluxe background check-plus law and challenged the Supreme Court to find a reason in the Constitution to overturn it.

This is the exact way Democrat-controlled states should deal with a Supreme Court that is bent on enacting what amounts to the Heritage Foundation’s and Federalist Society’s social agenda.  If the court wants to turn the clock back to the era of “states’ rights,” then take them at their word and pass whatever state laws they want.  Take the power the court appears to be granting the states and use it.  In spades.

New York, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and other blue states should enact laws directly contrary to the court’s right-wing decisions and dare them to reach down from their high perch in Washington and overturn them. 

Examples abound:  make it a crime to interfere in any way with a woman’s right to an abortion, even from outside the state.  If red states like Texas and Missouri want to try to pass laws allowing their citizens to sue anyone aiding a woman in obtaining an abortion, pass laws allowing the citizens of blue states to sue residents of other states who attempt to stop women from obtaining abortions.  Pass another law allowing suits against people from other states suing residents of blue states for aiding women exercising their right to abortion.  Pass a law making it a crime to interfere with anyone attempting to prevent a woman or anyone else from exercising a constitutional right within the state of New York (or other blue states), and if found guilty, place a ban on travel to or through that state.

To address the court’s decision on Monday that a high school football coach can pray on school property before or after football games, New York and other states should pass laws making it a crime to discriminate in any way against students who do not choose to join in such public prayers on school grounds.  Pass laws that allow other people from other faiths to pray at the exact same time in the exact place as the Christian coaches pray, whether in a locker room or football field or basketball court.  If the court wants prayer, give it to them: lots and lots of prayer.

Blue states should comb through every single decision handed down by the six right-wingers on the current Supreme Court and mine them for ways to throw sand in the gears.  And judges at the state and federal district level should do the same thing.  If the Supreme Court isn’t going to respect its own precedents, why should state courts or lower federal courts?  Get some lawsuits going that will give state and federal district judges the opportunity to hand down decisions directly contravening this Supreme Court, and then let the right-wing legal foundations file suits to overturn those decisions.  Enough lawsuits and lower court and state court decisions will gum-up the legal process in the state and federal courts forever.

The right-wing has done this for years with all of the anti-abortion restrictions they’ve passed in state legislatures that caused pro-abortion groups to file law suit after law suit to overturn them one by one. It’s time to give them some of their own medicine.  Pass state environmental restrictions that will contravene the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday limiting the EPA’s ability to issue regulations on climate change.  Regulations that are country-wide are easier for corporations to deal with than trying to keep up with a blizzard of state-by-state regulations of power plants, industrial waste, even automobile pollution.  Every single blue state should join California’s automobile air pollution regulations, and the regulations should be toughened.  Automobile companies are not going to want to make cars for blue states that are more complicated and expensive to make than the cars that can be sold in red states.  They’re going to want one standard, not 25 strict standards and 25 that are loose.

It's time to show this Supreme Court what states’ rights actually means, and it’s time to show them that if they don’t follow their own precedents, then neither will we.  Everybody says that all the Supreme Court has to enforce its decisions is its integrity and legitimacy.  Its legitimacy is at an all-time low and its integrity is in the toilet.  Let’s treat them the same way they’re treating women and the air everyone breathes and the water everyone drinks:  with complete and utter disrespect.