Nullification: Don't Tell Me About the Law; Tell Me About the Judge

 

STATEMENT TO THE HAMPTON SCHOOL BOARD

(Considering the Warrant Article giving a taxpayer money, an annual stipend, to a local church, the Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Catholic Church.)

One of the most cynical, and yet truest pieces of advice ever given a President was this: "Do not tell me about the law. Tell me about the judge." (Roy Cohn to Donald Trump.)

Law, of course is abstract. People are flesh and blood. Unless people follow the law, unless it is enforced, there is no law.

When I visit New York City, Manhattan, I often cross the street despite the electric "Don't Walk" sign. But I walk anyway. I can look down the grid in both directions and see no car, and I walk. And I'm often accompanied by a policeman walking next to me, or a dozen citizens, all of us violating a law. We ignore the law, and in doing so we nullify it. George Wallace stood in the school house door in Alabama to nullify a law to desegrated schools, and he was voted in--the will of local folks over the Constitution.

The Supreme Law of the Land, in New Hampshire as in Alabama, is the Constitution of the United States, and the very first words of the First Amendment to the Constitution say government shall not establish a church or any religion. And what can that mean? Well, as far as I know, there are only two ways to establish: simply stating a church is the official state church--the Church of England is the state church of England, or, Miraculous Medal is the official church of Hampton. That's one way to establish a church or religion. 

The other is simply to give government/taxpayer money to a church, just as you might establish a college by giving money.

Now, Justice Alito and Justice Thomas have ruled from their office in Washington, D.C., that separation of church and state is unconstitutional. Curious finding: The Constitution itself is unconstitutional! 

This is not my observation: Justice Sotomayor said this after the Court ruled that the State of Maine could not deny taxpayer dollars to a religious school simply because it is a religious school, teaching religion. Doesn't matter what the First Amendment says--the justices say different. Nullification. An instance of nullification of the Constitution from the Court.

Don't tell me about the law; tell me about the judge.

Well, here in Hampton, New Hampshire, we cannot change the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C.

But as a member of the Hampton School Board, you can say "No." You can say, "the law matters." It may be abstract, but embodied in the First Amendment is something we care about, something we think is a good thing: separation of church and state. We know the sorry, sordid, bloody history of states which mixed religion and state. Wives literally lost their heads when church/state mixed.

But tonight, right here in New Hampshire, you can, as elected members of the School Board, vote to embrace rather than nullify, you can choose to resist those who blithely violate the Constitution.  You can say, "NO!" Enough!

You can say nullification of the law can in some instances be benign, but in other instances it is not benign; it can be a willful act from the dark ages, an insurrection against the enlightened principles we have held dear, and which have served us well over the course of our nation's history--the temporary tenures of Supreme Court justices notwithstanding. 

You have, at least, that much power. 

But unless you use it, there is no law.  There is only local willfulness, indifference to principle, the cynical pursuit of mon-ey placed above what is true and right. It is a lesson, for better or for worse, for our schools and for our children right here in Hampton.