West Coast, Messed Coast™ – Governors Collude to Stop Constitutional 'Kneecapping' of Deep State

Welcome West Coast, Messed Coast™, readers. This week’s edition chronicles the many ways that the governors of Oregon, Washington, and California continue to emote, stomp their feet, and promise vast millions of their constituents’ dollars to counter U.S. Supreme Court decisions that follow the Constitution. They don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution.

The West Coast, Messed Coast™ hissy fit is being stage-managed by someone who’s probably on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s staff in collusion with the other two governors. Newsom’s on the ballot this year again and has his eye toward a 2024 White House run in the likely event that President 38 Percent Approval does the nation a favor and gets out. Newsom, Kate Brown of Oregon, in her last year in office, and Jay Inslee of Washington are choreographing their reactions to SCOTUS decisions. This off-putting collusion, as I’ve said multiple times before, means voters of three states apparently now have one governor. He lives in California. And Oregonians and Washingtonians didn’t vote for him nor is he accountable to them.

In reaction to my latest complaint about the three states setting up an “abortion offensive” in the last West Coast, Messed Coast™ edition, alert reader Mark Thomas wrote in to remind us: “What these 3 States, CA, WA, OR, plan to do by forming an ‘alliance of abortion access’ is illegal according to the U.S. Constitution, without approval from Congress. It is not known whether the House and Senate would vote to allow this. They probably have the votes, just barely, in the Senate.”

He included the citation from Article 1, Section 10 of that Constitution-thingie which reads, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress….. enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State…” (Art. I, Section 10)

The pertinent part reads in full, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

For years, the three states have entered into compacts about climate change, COVID, abortion sanctuary, and illegal alien sanctuary, and now they’re railing against the Supreme Court’s abortion decision and West Virginia v EPA decision that requires Congress to make laws instead of the EPA.

Apparently, the governors feel they’ve been “kneecapped.”

Standing before a stand of burned-out trees – allowed to burn due to the Left’s antipathy to managing forests – Newsom said, “this Supreme Court is hell bent on turning back the clock and ignoring reality. Now, they have kneecapped the federal government’s ability to tackle climate change.”

This Supreme Court is hell bent on turning back the clock and ignoring reality. Now, they have kneecapped the federal government’s ability to tackle climate change.

Today, I’m signing a $54 BILLION climate-fighting plan. CA will keep leading the way. pic.twitter.com/QhJfA2DofE

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 30, 2022

Of course, the Supreme Court decision reaffirmed that it’s CONGRESS’s job to write the laws, not the bureaucrats in the EPA. But sure, it “kneecapped the federal government.” Oy.

Washington’s Jay Inslee declared that the Supreme Court had “kneecapped” the bureaucrats run by the Left: “This decision in the West Virginia case … essentially kneecapped the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to restrain pollution from these coal-fired plants.”

Kate Brown endorsed the collection of states moving to ignore the Supreme Court decision and Constitution.

Alliance governors will continue to lead the way in decarbonizing the power sector. #WVvEPA #SCOTUS https://t.co/atVjGRAgL6 pic.twitter.com/5rwQJ5s24V

— US Climate Alliance (@USClimate) June 30, 2022

As the COVID pandemic moves to the endemic stage all three West Coast, Messed Coast™ cling to their emergency powers. Tyranny is too much fun! Inslee has misused his power to attempt to codify his edict that all state workers be required to get a COVID shot to be employed – even employees who have received medical or religious exemptions. Throughout the pandemic, Inslee notoriously granted religious exemptions and then provided no accommodations for those exemptions. He’s promising to make that a feature, not a bug, of his new and unimproved COVID standards.