A bill, making it a felony for an elected member of a city or other municipality council to vote in favor of any local measure to implement “sanctuary city” policies as well as empowering the state attorney general to remove that member from office – among other over-the-top MAGA bullshit – passed both the state House and Senate on Thursday, headed for the desk of Gov Billy Lee, WTVF reports.
Sanctuary cities are already banned under Tennessee state law, so if the city council of Memphis were to pass such a measure, it would be toothless. Yet, for whatever demented reason, the ULTRAMAGA Republicans in the state legislature want to criminalize even a “symbolic,” dead-end vote to codify refusing to lend local law enforcement assistance to federal immigration authorities.
That’s, uh, pretty undemocratic, fascistic, and unconstitutional on top of unnecessary. Also extremely unlikely to fly with the Supreme Court, even given the MAGAfied 6-3 bench we’re stuck with now. They might be Nazis but they aren’t stupid either. Allowing criminalization of the basest of democratic functions to stand would open the door to California or New York criminalizing Republican members of Congress from their states for voting against a national right to abortion.