South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem
New Bills in North and South Dakota Would Allow the State to Ignore Executive Orders From Biden
A proposed bill in North Dakota would allow the state to ignore any executive orders handed down from President Joe Biden if said orders don’t jibe with the Constitution.
House Bill 1164, submitted by Republican State Rep. Tom Kading, reads:
The legislative management may review any executive order issued by the president of the United States which has not been affirmed by a vote of the Congress of the United States and signed into law as prescribed by the Constitution of the United States and recommend to the attorney general and the governor that the executive order be further reviewed. Upon recommendation from the legislative management, the attorney general shall review the executive order to determine the constitutionality of the order and whether the state should seek an exemption from the application of the order or seek to have the order declared to be an unconstitutional exercise of legislative authority by the president.
In other words, if Biden issues an executive order, the state’s attorney general may review the order to determine if it complies with the Constitution. From there, the state will determine if they should seek exemption from the order or challenge the order on constitutional grounds.
The bill goes on to state specifics when it comes to the orders it will “nullify” in the event of constitutional breaches, such as “pandemics or other health emergencies,” regulation of North Dakota’s agriculture industry, any financial orders that relate to environmental or social standards, and “the regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
As a separate but related bill, Republican State Rep. Sebastian Ertelt introduced a similar law that would nullify any federal laws that also breach constitutional authority. HB1282 would create a “Committee on Neutralization of Federal Laws” which would determine the constitutionality of any given federal law and, if found wanting, would proceed to nullify it within the state.
North Dakota isn’t the only state looking to implement these bills into law. South Dakota has cooked up a few of their own bills that effectively do the same thing.
South Dakota bill seeks power to reject presidential executive orders https://t.co/krkDMXAJSP
— Samantha Sullivan (@SamSullivan) February 1, 2021
These bills will likely be challenged on constitutional grounds themselves, with critics citing the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause which states that federal law will be the supreme law of the land. RedState will follow the life of these bills.
