Blue states taking measures to resist federal fascism

Blue states are finally learning what red states have known all along: you don’t need federal permission to govern.

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We’re not heading toward another Fort Sumter. We’re watching something else: states quietly walking away from each other. Blue states will protect abortion rights, support organized labor, and protect individual rights. Red states will allow Christian theocracy, suppress wages, and criminalize free speech, and destroy healthcare. The federal government becomes a hollow structure that states have a moral impreative to ignore.

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Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific [...] They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring.

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Iillinois governor JB] Pritzker has his staff exploring how to force Apple and Google to disable location tracking for anyone crossing into Illinois for medical procedures, preventing any digital trail that could be subpoenaed. Multiple governors are studying whether they can legally deny federal agents access to state databases, airports, and even highways for immigration enforcement. The discussions, according to sources, have gone as far as evaluating state authority to close airspace to federal deportation flights. States are creating pharmaceutical stockpiles, climate agreements, immigration policies. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has secured 209 electoral votes. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s 11 states have reduced emissions by 50% while the federal government rolled back climate regulations. The U.S. Climate Alliance’s 24 governors represent 60% of the American economy.

California doesn’t wait for Washington anymore. Neither does New York. Or Illinois. They’re building functioning governmental systems that operate independently of federal authority.

“Really, we have no idea what’s coming down the pike,” Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, admitted to CNN. That uncertainty is why states are preparing for everything. Multiple governors have been running tabletop exercises behind closed doors for months, with state attorneys general and other relevant officials. One participant described a December session where they walked through scenarios of federal troops being deployed to blue states.

The preparations are specific and practical. Draft lawsuits sit ready in what officials call “brief banks.” States are identifying which federal funds they can afford to lose. They’re studying their executive powers and state constitutions. They’re building coalitions that transcend traditional partisan lines.

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Next week, the governors meet again. The agenda, according to three sources, includes a discussion of whether to coordinate state tax policy to offset federal cuts.

  Chris Armitage Substack

Read the whole article. It's encouragement in the face of the fascist onslaught of Trump 2.0.