I say “when” and not “whether” or “if” since the path down which San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is trotting has been trod before, by followers of John C. Calhoun. Just listen to him: “I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with” enforcing immigration laws.
Attempting to nullify federal law by interposing the authority of local governments is pure Calhoun, minus the theoretical erudition of the man historian Richard Hofstadter called “the Marx of the Master Class.” As Calhoun wrote in his Disquisition of Government, which the Mayor should be handing out on every street corner (translated, of course, into Spanish et. al.),
It is this negative power — the power of preventing or arresting the action of the government — be it called by what term it may — veto, interposition, nullification, check, or balance of power — which, in fact, forms the constitution.
And here:
This right of interposition … , be it called what it may, State Right, Veto, Nullification, I conceive to be the fundamental principle of our system….
Nullification, as declaring null an unconstitutional act of the General Government, so far as the State is concerned; Interposition or State Right, as throwing the shield of protection between the citizens of a State and the encroachments of the Government; and Veto, as arresting or inhibiting its unauthorized acts within the limits of the State….
Actually, Mayor Newsom has improved upon Calhoun — who was, after all, a 19th Century white southern racist defender of slavery — by expanding the umbrella of interposition to protect non-“citizens of a State” as well.
