I think it's good to realize that many people's commitment to "American" values is weak at best. Things like state's rights, equal representation in government, and even "freedom of speech" are often political tools rather than actual values.
Reading basic history shows it's always been this way. As a simple historical example the soon to be Confederate states complained about "state's rights" for slavery but when they seceded they enshrined slavery in their constitution and notably didn't leave it up to their states (so clearly that institution was more important to them than state autonomy). It's always been a convenient veneer over policy.
Maybe I'm wrong but I always interpreted that line as they couldn't pass any laws denying slavery, which would include the states. Lots of the clauses in that article are fairly broad rights that wouldn't make sense if it just restricted the federal government (e.g. the ability to bear arms, the right to not quarter soldiers, the right to reasonable bail) so viewing it as a fundamental restriction, and not just a restriction for Congress, isn't a crazy interpretation (though I'm not a constitutional scholar so I don't know).
Their Constitution also had a clause about how new territories needed to allow slavery so choice definitely wasn't their priority:
Article IV Section 3(3)
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.
There are some differences between the Constitutions and I'm not convinced, partially because the vice president of the Confederacy himself seemed to think that it was "unmistakably" protected in the Constitution:
"I congratulate the country that the strife has been put to rest forever, and that American slavery is to stand before the world as it is, and on its own merits. We have now placed our domestic institution, and secured its rights unmistakably, in the Constitution. We have sought by no euphony to hide its name. We have called our negroes 'slaves', and we have recognized and protected them as persons and our rights to them as property."
Edit: The privileges and immunities clause of the US 14th amendment seems to have a parallel in the Confederate Constitution so it's not entirely clear that the Constitutions are the same here (and it seems like if the Constitution didn't protect slavery it was an oversight or someone just forgot to tell their vice president). Apparently the privileges and immunities clause in the US Constitution was essentially nullified later (the US Supreme Court seems to have just wacky interpretations sometimes) but seems intended to confer rights to people in states. I'm a bit out of my depth in finding primary sources on this though, except for the excerpt from the VP who has a very clear opinion (and I have a tendency to not immediately believe what a VP is saying).
Article IV Section 2(1)
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
> The U.S. Constitution states in Article IV, Section 2, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." The Confederate Constitution added that a state government could not prohibit the rights of slave owners traveling or visiting from a different state with their slaves.
Similar to the Fugitive Slave Clause, this does not invalidate the Dred Scott opinion that "a State may unquestionably prohibit slavery within its territory."
Huh, it never got tested in the Confederacy but it's interesting their Constitution might not have protected it. I'm very curious what the Confederate Supreme Court would have said if it ever had existed.
I wonder if that it's not clearly protected based on US jurisprudence is an oversight because apparently the Barron v Baltimore decision wasn't well known at the time according to the wiki article you linked on it and the VP was so adamant that it is.
> In thus constructing the fundamental law, of course, a struggle has occurred in the secret sessions of the Montgomery Congress, in which those refusing to close the door against the reception of anti-slavery States have achieved a victory.
They were hypocrites even before they succeeded, since one of their main grievances was that free states did not enforce the Fugitive Slave Laws, which were a case of the feds overriding the states on that matter to begin with. No surprise that, once they had their own government, they took those same laws to 11 by mandating slavery throughout.
The point they are making is that for decades GOP would cry states' rights whenever Democrats did something at the federal level but whenever they are in power, states' rights suddenly don't matter.
That's not possible. The Republican propaganda machine is very effective and there are many supporters who will vote with the GOP because "states' rights" but will simultaneously vote for all these policies. I don't think the fiercely logical part of HN understands politics and thinks you can just out debate someone into changing their mind but if it was that simple, the GOP would've died out decades ago.
People who love dunking on conservatives on twitter don’t realize that saying absurd stuff and then watching liberals wind themselves into a tizzy is like 95% of the GOP’s media strategy.
You're being downvoted but you're right and if people spent any time in conservative spaces they would know this. "Owning the libs" has become a meme but this is the point to a lot of what Republicans do.
This is far too sweeping, but when you have California seemingly intent on smothering our AI industry in its crib it makes sense that they’re scared.
That said, I think it’d be smarter of the GOP to let California do just that. It’s a chance to move that tech money out of California and into another more regulation friendly state.
Waymo seems to be operating smoothly in San Francisco. OpenAI's headquarters are also there. Many AI startups are also based in San Francisco, California.
Right, but you might want to look at the regulations their lawmakers have been proposing. If put in place it would put a stop to that pretty much immediately.
It is trivial to find examples of market-destroying bills introduced to legislatures in any time period in history. What makes bills newsworthy is when they have meaningful support.
If you could get the whole world on board, sure. However, many other countries aren't going to play ball. When there's a chance (even if it's tiny) that AGI is coming that becomes a huge matter of national security, nevermind economic dominance.
California is not a reliable entity to entrust with such lofty ambitions.
This is the same state that banned plastic bags to "save the environment" - did they mandate paper bags then? Renewable, compostable, organic paper? No! They allowed plastic bags to be replaced with... Super thick plastic bags! Which I assure you, stores go through at least 80% as many as before because people usually don't bring bags, but now they're 4-5x the plastic.
And they added a ton of regulation on straws based on that literal child's insane napkin math that went viral, that claimed that America uses 7 or 8 straws per man, woman, and child, per day. Now we get to use multiple paper straws that dissolve in your cup immediately.
California is awash in best-intentions, but utterly useless and counterproductive, regulation. Just another downside to one-party rule. Neither party does a good job with zero counterbalance to their power and ideas.
> This is the same state that banned plastic bags to "save the environment" - did they mandate paper bags then? Renewable, compostable, organic paper? No!
"When the UK Environment Agency did a life cycle assessment of supermarket carrier bags (PDF) they found that non-woven polypropylene bags needed to be re-used at least 11 times to have lower global warming potential than single-use HDPE, or High-Density Poly-Ethylene, bags. Cotton shopping bags need to be used at least 131 times. Paper bags were the big losers. They aren't likely to survive the 4 uses needed to reach the same global warming potential, but are much more toxic to produce than plastic."
11 uses out of a reusable bag is not a tough threshold to hit. I've got one I know is from 2018 in daily use still and has crossed the Pacific several times.
For every one of you, there are 10,000 suburban shoppers who go through 15 super thick plastic bags a week and discard them after a single use. It would still be better if they were using the flimsy old bags. The law was stupid.
"States's rights" has always been coded language. Lee Atwater's post Nixon interview gave away the playbook. The hypocrisy is easy to see in that lens. First it started with racial slurs, then welfare queens, racial slurs, big government, states rights, occasional "liberty and freedom" thrown in for good measure. Currently it's DEI and trans.
> no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act
States never got to control Federal spending, AI or otherwise.
But the Tenth Amendment pretty strictly limits how much the Feds can control state spending and legislation, too.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the 10th Amendment (little does).
This is a straightforward declaration of Commerce Clause authority. This SCOTUS has made it clear the “Dormant Commerce Clause” is not stirring awake, so if Congress wants to preempt state regulation of interstate commerce they have to do so explicitly.
The Feds can't say "you can't regulate in a way we don't like" to the states. They can apply "reasonable conditions" along the lines of "if you do x we will take away related funding y" but the entire point of the Tenth Amendment is that states have more rights than the Feds unless otherwise stated.
Federalism as protected by the Tenth means California can require things like "may contain lead" on labels, even though some of those products may be sold outside of California.
The Feds can't say "you can't regulate in a way we don't like" to the states.
They absolutely can when it comes to interstate commerce, which by precedent has a rather broad definition under which this kind of regulation easily fits.
Dole was about using spending power to constrain vaguely related state legislative powers. Not the same thing at all.
National Pork Producers Council v. Ross is much more relevant:
If Congress had spoken on pork labeling requirements, California would have been out of luck under the Commerce Clause. But because they hadn’t, California was free to regulate.
