ABSTRACT

At the start of the twenty-first century, state-based practices were on life-support. Judicial supremacy was ascendant and state claims of interpretive authority were often dismissed as a vestige of nullification and interposition. However, states once again revive the practice of using state resolutions to influence what the Constitution means. In the wake of the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act, states responded by laying out contrasting visions of constitutional values imperiled by the Patriot Act. What emerged was a constructive process where ideas legitimated by states were employed by organized interests both politically and legally. However, state interpretive claims were followed by new claims of state authority to effectively undermine federal laws through nonenforcement. Neonullifiers did not challenge judicial supremacy but rather sought to piggyback state authority onto judicial doctrine by employing the Court’s non-commandeering doctrine. As such, neonullification attempted to enhance the state’s interpretive authority by resting on the Court’s constitutional authority.