This morning, while getting ready for work, I caught the good "States Rights" folks on Fox News complaining because Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor thinks State and Local Law should supersede Federal "Law." They'd be complaining just as loudly if she was arguing that Federal Law supersedes state law, if the situation was reversed.

In this situation, they're complaining about how she thinks that state and local law should supersede the 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They're right, but for the wrong reasons - she is a bad choice as a jurist if she thinks that the Constitution is just a Federal Law - it's not.

The problem is that the Constitution isn't "law" per se, but sits above the law, as a guarantor of rights. It is meta-law, sitting outside the law, governing what is and isn't law. The SCOTUS¹ doesn't get to decide what the Constitution says (though she, and apparently the POTUS² might like it to), the SCOTUS only gets to decide whether a particular law is permissible under the Constitution, and if so, whether it is applicable in a particular case or body of cases.

By the same token, I'm pretty sure that Sotomayor would find plenty of fault with any state or local legislation that ran counter to Federal legislation, which under the Constitution should be greatly more limited than it is - if that state or local legislation ran counter to her personal preferences. And this is what's wrong with her: A SCOTUS justice should not be an activist, and she clearly is.

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¹ Supreme Court Of The United States
² President Of The United States