Why Not Arrest Governor Lujan Grisham?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico has an interesting take on her constitutional role. Elaborating upon her decision to “suspend” the state’s concealed- and open-carry laws in the service of a vaguely defined “emergency,” she explained that “no constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute. There are restrictions on free speech. There are restrictions on my freedoms.”
Okay, then. So why not arrest her?
The obvious rejoinder to this suggestion is “the law.” But, as she has made perfectly clear, Lujan Grisham doesn’t believe in all that nonsense. In defense of her executive order, she has provided nothing except the reiteration of her desire. She has cited no statute, invoked no constitutional provision, pointed to no court order or precedent or wrinkle. Hers is an assertion: I believe there is an emergency, therefore I must.
Two can play that game. More than anything else, the Framers of America’s constitutional order feared executive tyranny. They built a nation of laws not men, of constitutions not caprice, of legislatures not kings. If the people of New Mexico now live in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, what is to stop any of them, too, from declaring an emergency and acting accordingly? Lujan Grisham has said that she is obliged “to take a tough direct stand,” lest she be seen to be “ignoring” the problem. Her aim, she has confirmed, is to send a “resounding message.”
So arrest her — without a warrant and without cause. Put her in prison for 30 days without a trial. Raise her taxes to 100 percent without an appropriations bill. Take her property without reimbursement. Quarter some troops in her home. Impose an excessive fine. Hit her with a bill of attainder — imposed ex post facto if possible. And, for good measure, prevent her from complaining about it by imposing a monthlong gag order — to be lifted once this emergency has gone.
Would that be wrong? Here’s a challenge: Explain why it would be wrong without appealing to the rule of law. In Lujan Grisham’s estimation, “no constitutional right, including my oath, is intended to be absolute.” All right. Let’s suspend them both. For a month only, her oath will be on hiatus and her rights will be deferred. Don’t worry, it’s not a permanent abridgment; it’s a targeted moratorium for the public good. “There are restrictions on my freedoms,” the governor insists. Then let’s impede them.
And if that’s a problem? Then she can take it to the courts. By design, her approach has been to restrict first and litigate later. Surely, she too must live under that rule? “I’ve warned everyone that we expect a direct challenge,” she told the press. If that’s good enough for the people, it’s good enough for the governor. Once the necessary actions have been taken, she can file an objection. In the meantime, though, it will stand. It’s regrettable, but there’s no choice. Something must be done, and this is something. That’s how emergencies work. Right?
Wrong. There is, I’m afraid, no comprehensible way of distinguishing between what I have facetiously proposed above and what Governor Lujan Grisham has attempted in New Mexico. A stable and intelligible set of written laws is what separates free nations such as the United States and the tyrannies it was designed to avoid. That law must be seamless in its scope and application. It cannot be applied to some but not others; it cannot be suspended at will; it cannot be subordinated to the subjective judgment of those who swore an oath to uphold it. It exists, or it does not. It remains intact, or it is torn apart. It is universal, or it is obviated. In the 18th century, Edmund Burke wrote glowingly about the colonists’ hair-trigger approach toward usurpations. “They augur misgovernment at a distance,” Burke judged, “and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” Governor Lujan Grisham has tainted the breeze. She now has a choice. She can back off. Or she, too, can be subjected to the arbitrary framework she has contrived for everyone else. In this country, we put restrictions on our politicians.
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That law must be seamless in its scope and application. It cannot be applied to some but not others; it cannot be suspended at will; it cannot be subordinated to the subjective judgment of those who swore an oath to uphold it. It exists, or it does not. It remains intact, or it is torn apart. It is universal, or it is obviated
Or, if reducing gun violence is truly an emergency that justifies suspending the Constitution, why not take acts that would actually save lives? Why doesn't she suspend the 4th Amendment in high crime counties for thirty days? For the next month, police can search the homes of any person they believe might be a gang member or prone to violence without cause. They can stop and search any male on the street in these areas without cause. All evidence found will be admissible in Court, no bail will be allowed in these areas and all sentences for any crime discovered during the searches will result in the maximum penalty allowed by law.
That'll save more lives than punishing legal gun owners. Why isn't she proposing that?
The cops do that now with no-knock bench warrants. The cops already have a license to kick in a door and fire 1000 rounds because they're scared shitless.
So they don’t do that, then.
Hey, Nimrods, we did for abortion. We can do the same damned thing for guns, too.
Let's test that nose-in-the-air purity. Should migrants jumping the border be allowed to bring guns? Should the border patrol be releasing 'asylum seekers' packing heat? Everyone should have a gun, you've said so.
A governor unilaterally took away the right to an abortion? Must have missed that.
Should migrants jumping the border be allowed to bring guns?
why would the second amendment apply to criminal aliens?
Oh, come now. Governor's have unilaterally granted the right to kill. Governor's have even been stockpiling abortion pills to protect and defend the right to kill. Governor's have been protecting killer doctors.
Why should the second amendment apply to criminal citizens? Why use the Constitution to defend a right to kill and protect the killers?
Yeah, we know criminals kill and guns don't. But ready access to guns makes the killing so very easy.
I have no idea what you are trying to say. That doesn't violate any constitutional right that I'm aware of.
Why use the Constitution to defend a right to kill and protect the killers?
So you are anti-fourth, fifth amendment etc than?
Hey, if this is an all-or-nothing proposition then nothing is a valid goal. Don't want to compromise on abortion then we'll work hard to completely ban abortion. Don't want to compromise on guns then we'll work just as hard to ban guns.
It took 50 years to knock down the phony protections for abortion. So, it's only a matter of time for guns.
I have no idea what analogy or argument you are trying to make. This is about an governor ignoring the rule of law and unilaterally voiding a Constitutional right. How you imagine that somehow involves compromise is beyond me.
Section 241 of the federal penal code is the civil-rights conspiracy statute — the same one, in fact, that Biden Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has dubiously charged against former president Donald Trump in the federal election-interference case. In the pertinent part, Section 241 states:
Obviously, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D., N.M.) and her subordinates have conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Americans in New Mexico in the free exercise and enjoyment of their Second Amendment rights. Indeed, her acknowledgment that she expects to be challenged in court underscores both her criminal intent and the fact that the rights she has decided to “suspend” are well established in constitutional law.
For all their Trump-era prattle about norms, Democrats have now established the banana-republic practice of exploiting the criminal law as a weapon in political combat. Moreover, what Grisham has unabashedly done in defying the Second Amendment’s prohibition on governmental denial of the fundamental right of self-defense is more clearly a civil-rights violation than what Trump allegedly did to injure voting rights (see, e.g., United States v. Gradwell (1917), supporting the proposition that the federal civil-rights statute does not reach allegations of voting interference that (a) stretch far beyond the law’s original purpose to protect then-recently enfranchised black voters, and (b) turn on interpretations of state law).
I don't think Democrats understand how dangerous the door they opened with lawfare is. McCarthy makes the case above how Lujuan's arrest can be justified by a prosecutor who takes the same broad reading of the Conspiracy statutes that SC Smith does. I've seen the argument made that the Atlanta DA can be arrested under the same state statute she is prosecuting Trump for because she mispresented case law in a brief before the Court. It doesn't take much to make political acts criminal.