Last week’s Alabama primary victory by Roy Moore over Luther Strange to become the Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat garnered enormous attention because of the political machinations surrounding the contest. President Trump traveled to Huntsville for a September 22 rally supporting Strange, only to be followed three days later by former White House strategist Steve Bannon leading a rally outside Mobile in support of Moore. The day after the Bannon rally, Moore cruised to victory.
But Moore’s win is also big news for the world of constitutional law, and not because he seeks the Senate seat Jeffrey Sessions held before becoming Attorney General. In Moore’s view, elected officials are free—indeed, obligated—to disregard federal constitutional rulings they deem illegitimate, the very position that nearly led to armed conflict with southern states in the 1950s in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Moore’s defiant approach to the federal courts has surfaced most dramatically around two hot-button issues: a Ten Commandments monument and gay marriage.
