Everywhere you look these days, the political party that claims to stand for small government has been pushing government into places it does not belong. Whether it’s
- Oklahoma passing a law that forces women seeking abortions (including victims of rape or incest) to have invasive ultrasounds and that requires their doctors to give them detailed explanations of what’s on the screen, and that further requires doctors to position the monitors so that women have to close their eyes or turn their heads not to see the ultrasound; or whether it’s
- Oklahoma passing a second law to accompany the one above, this one encouraging doctors not to tell pregnant women about any fetal abnormality or medical anomaly, and indemnifying them from lawsuits if they do choose to withhold that medical information from the pregnant woman; or whether it’s
- the religious right pushing the Obama administration to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that it’s unconstitutional for the President of the United States to tell over 300 million Americans that they should pray on a particular day every year; or whether it’s
- Arizona passing a law that requires police officers to assume that anyone they encounter is an undocumented immigrant unless and until proved otherwise; or whether it’s
- Arizona (again!) passing a law that “prohibits a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people” (in plain English, banning ethnic studies curricula like this one).
The party that just 10 days ago came up with a “Contract from America” to — among other things — “end runaway government spending” and “protect the Constitution” by “[requiring] each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does,” supports just the reverse in practice.
And yes, I know that the examples of government overreach listed above are all examples of state, not federal, legislation, it’s still government regulating Americans’ private lives and choices, and/or violating individual rights and liberties that are constitutionally guaranteed on both the state and the federal level.
What’s more, when government acts in ways that are clearly unconstitutional, taxpayer dollars are being spent unnecessarily and wastefully — which, of course, violates another Republican article of faith. Being ‘wise stewards’ of ‘Americans’ hard-earned money’ is what the GOP and conservatives in general are all about, right?
Again, only in speeches and self-serving “contracts” with the American people. In practice, and in hard reality, Republican lawmakers in Congress and in state legislatures have no problem sticking taxpayers with potentially millions of dollars worth of quixotic legal battles either to defend plainly unconstitutional laws, or to “repeal” a law that just as plainly is NOT unconstitutional — the latter even to the point, in Georgia, of the governor threatening to impeach an attorney-general for refusing to participate in that state’s repeal effort because he didn’t want to waste taxpayer dollars. And they are doing this at a time when state budgets are strained beyond the breaking point. All over the country, states and cities and local communities are being forced to cut essential services, lay off teachers and municipal workers, reduce library hours and shutter public schools, and Republican legislators are passing laws to ban all abortions after 20 weeks (Nebraska), and to force pregnant rape survivors to have a wand inserted into their uteruses, listen to a doctor telling them what the fetus inside them looks like, and see the fetus on the ultrasound monitor that must be placed straight in front of their eyes.
There is no way such a law can stand up in court — which, of course, is not even to mention the fact that what the law does is monstrous. Nevertheless, a Republican legislature will pass it over a Democratic governor’s veto because they want to overturn Roe v. Wade — which will not happen, but which will cost Oklahoma taxpayers a fortune in legal costs.
Consider also that a raft of such clearly unconstitutional anti-abortion laws have been passed in the last several years — laws that in many instances are actually designed to be unconstitutional. These laws deliberately invite legal challenges; are written and passed for no other purpose than to serve as test cases to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In the case of the new Oklahoma law, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit against it on Tuesday — the same day it was passed over Gov. Brad Henry’s veto.
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