REP JIM JORDAN, REP TOM McCLINTOCK: Democrats think they can overrule laws

Students of American history may recall the nullification crisis of the 1830s, when South Carolina asserted for itself the right to declare federal law void inside its state borders. President Andrew Jackson asserted federal authority, South Carolina backed down, and the crisis passed peacefully.

The idea that a state could nullify federal law effectively ended three decades later with the bloodshed of the Civil War. It was further buried in the 1950s by Supreme Court decisions and President Dwight D.