EJ MONTINI

Montini: Arizona motto? If at first you don't secede...

EJ Montini
opinion columnist
Will the Arizona legislature write up one of these. (It's an 1861 model.)

Among the many difficult choices Gov. Doug Ducey will have to make this year is whether he wants to remain governor of Arizona or become president…of Arizona.

We really should change the state motto to: “If at first you don’t secede…”

Because we’re at it again.

This time, with House Bill 2024, Republican Rep. Mark Finchem essentially wants to separate the state from the federal government.

This has happened before. Many times.

Way back in 2000 an Arizona legislator named Karen Johnson introduced legislation that would have have dissolved the federal government and set up sovereign states. It actually passed, 3-2, in the Federal Mandates and States Rights Committee.

Just about every year since then there has been one kind of secessionist proposal or another. They’d be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that they’re proposed by individuals who have been elected.

And who are serious.

There have been ballot proposition ideas as well.

All with the notion of allowing Arizona to simply nullify the federal government. To tell Washington, "You're not the boss of me" in just the same way a child might say such a thing to his mother and father.

And with the same success.

Finchem wants the state to forbid local governments from using staff or financial resources to enforce or support any presidential executive order, federal agency policy or U.S. Supreme Court opinion that “is not in pursuance of the Constitution” and has not been passed by Congress and signed into law.

Since it is the U.S. Supreme Court that actually gets to decide what is “in pursuance of the Constitution” this is a troublesome idea.

It kinds of nullifies the whole idea of a union. (Didn't some states try that before?)

It's even more sticky since Finchem doesn’t exactly provide the details on which one of us gets to decide which court rulings, presidential actions or elements of the Constitution we don’t particularly want to go along with.

(Pick ME and I'm all for the idea.)

I’m not sure exactly how Gov. Ducey feels about giving up his position as governor and taking on the responsibility of running the nation of Arizona.

There are a lot of things the federal government does for us that we'd have to start doing for ourselves.

For one thing, before he could put together a volunteer army he would have to convince all of those armed Arizona crackpots currently occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge to come back and defend the homeland.

And he’d really have to figure out how he’s going to afford that wall along the Mexican border that he talked about during the election.

Then again, if Arizona becomes an independent nation perhaps we could get some help on all that by applying for foreign aid from the United States.

President Donald Trump would go along with that.