This same logic then argues for the relative impartiality of the judicial structure, which, BTW, I see as quite a plausible argument, as all social phenomenon are capable of their "own laws of motion" determined relatively independently of those of class power, while the latter remain as dominant.
But if such impartiality is a possibility, then why not for the judicial principle of "states' rights". It strikes me as a bit of antediluvian dogmatism to insist that this principle is _always_ reactionary, simply because the right wing has made use of it since before the Civil War. (Aside: It's a dogmatism which parallels that of 'official' US leftists on tax policy, wherein any talk of actually _reducing_ taxes is always implicitly "reactionary" - thereby handing this issue over, gratis, to the right).
And, as appears to be the case on this list, we generally agree that, as one moves up the judicial hierarchy, its "laws of motion" are increasingly indeterminate, which I interpret to mean _decreasingly_ independent of the influence of class power, and if the balance of that class power is reactionary - as it is in our time, all agreed? - then it should follow that the commanding Federal heights within the Beltway will be the prime locus of class reaction. The reality of the US Supreme Court - and its current overweening institutional influence on the balance of political power (an influence determined by forces external to the judicial structure) - would confirm this. And the concentration of political reaction at the Federal center, as the preferred locus of rightist policy (however 'DLC moderated'), is hardly limited to the judicial institutions. The world has changed quite a bit since the 1930's, but many US leftists are blind to this, as they still live the New Deal in their political imaginations, awaiting another FDR - the imagined political character of whom is another image handed down to us by the CPUSA, among others, which remains a bit of US leftist mythology in need of demolition.
But this conclusion is in contradiction to the dogmatic view of states' rights (and its implicit "other" - that "Federal right" is always - if not positively 'more progressive' - at least a 'lesser evil' in relation to states' rights). And it would both contradict professed political principle and deny present political reality by siding with the US Supreme Court against the progressive laws of the state of California (passed by popular initiative, moreover!)
For states such as California - where the Republican Party presently faces the spector of permanent minority status and a future of possible political extinction, due to California's increasingly divergent geo-demographics from the US norm - the constitutional principles of states' rights and reserved powers will be a tool that of necessity must be bent to progressive political ends.
-Brad Mayer Oakland CA
At 08:14 PM 5/16/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Much as I disagree with the laws around the drug war, I agree with Justin
>that it would be a completely constitutional position to have the Supreme
>Court carve out a states rights position on the issue. The rightwing is
>pushing forward to carve up such rules to strike down federal
>antidiscrimination legislation; for progressives to push in the same
>direction of states rights is absolutely nuts.