The Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act by telling Congress to update the "pre-clearance" criteria for nine bad-actor southern states. Until that happens (i.e. never), those nine plus all the other states can each do their own thing with voting rules. Chief Justice John Roberts said, "Things have changed in the South." Not that much. Texas announced it would immediately move forward with a voter ID law designed to reduce the number of black and Latino voters. (No more dogs and fire hoses, just the same sort of race-based ID laws that were the impetus for the Voting Rights Act in the first place.)
The Supremes also overturned DOMA and refused to rule on California's Prop 8. Good! The effect is that the federal ban on same-sex marriage is found to be unconstitutional and again it's all up to the individual states. The feds can't prevent same-sex marriage in states that already allow it, but states that prohibit it may continue to do so. That's a guaranteed cluster-fuck (pardon the imagery). It's legal in one state, but what if you move to another where it's not? How's that gonna work? John Boehner, who stupidly chose to defend DOMA, said "It's my hope that states will define marriage as between one man and on woman." Good luck with that, Orange Man. Sooner rather than later, all state bans on same-sex marriage will crumble of their own stupid weight. (As the lovely Mrs. Gammons says, "If you don't like same-sex marriage, then don't marry someone of the same sex.")
Using an arcane state law, Texas state senator Wendy Davis successfully filibustered for 13 hours to prevent a vote to adopt unconstitutional restrictions on abortion. Texas and other like-minded states are so obsessed with defying Roe v. Wade that they gleefully pass bullshit laws and dare the federal courts to stop them. A day after Davis's filibuster, Gov. Rick the Dick Perry ordered another vote on the same bill. Here in Ohio, Gov. Kay-suck will likely sign the GOP majority's budget bill which de-funds Planned Parenthood and requires abortion providers to give an ultrasound and describe the fetal heartbeat to their patients. Yeah, just routine, everyday stuff in the old budget bill. (Jesus! These dickheads actually believe they're "doing the people's business"???)
And don't forget the unworkable hodgepodge of gun laws (or lack thereof) across our fifty states. The regulatory differences between, say, New York and Arkansas are enormous, yet firearms are equally dangerous and lethal in both states. It makes absolutely no sense.
Do you suppose that our fabulous founding fathers really envisioned a union of 50 mini-nations, with 50 different sets of rules on everything from A to Z? Really? As you'll recall, it was an awful and extreme misapplication of "states rights" that gave us slavery and the Civil War. Charming.
States may vary by size, population, climate and topography but, pretty much, people are people wherever you go. Often, the "because-we-can" legal variations from state to state serve mainly to confuse and frustrate us as we live, work, travel, shop, etc.
There is certainly a place for states and localities to exercise certain rights, but for many things a consistent and uniform federal rule works best and works easiest. Ooh, that sounds like "Big Government"!!
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