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Gov. Bob McDonnell is catching flak over a question he sidestepped Wednesday night in Roanoke during his first town hall meeting on government reform.

He was asked whether he believes in nullification, the theory that a state can invalidate a federal law that it considers unconstitutional.

McDonnell did not endorse the idea, or denounce it.

“I have not looked at nullification in a very, very long time so I can’t really comment on that at this point, but I do think that we’ve got to find ways,” he said. “Mr. Jefferson says the government closest to the people governs best, well that’s the local government and the state government.”

It was among several questions that the governor fielded that night about the Constitution and the rights of states.

But Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, jumped on the governor’s answer.

“Like every other elected official, Governor McDonnell took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and all the articles and clauses within that document,” he said.

“Nullification is not legal and declining to respond is not acceptable. I expect our governor to uphold the law and the Constitution and to refute unconstitutional and illegal drivel when he hears it.”

The concept of nullification is freighted with historical significance. During Massive Resistance it was advanced in Virginia and other states as a way to thwart court-ordered desegregation of public schools.

The defenders of centralized governmental power (a.k.a. tyranny) despise the Jeffersonian idea that the citizens of the states have a right to nullify what they believe to be unconstitutional federal laws. That’s why it was necessary to have our bill of rights in order to ratify the US Constitution. The 10th amendment is very clear and direct on this issue “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.” Thomas Jefferson clearly explained if you allow the federal government to be the sole judge of it’s own powers surely it would interpret it so it would expand it powers. Every time the federal government creates an unconstitutional mandate it is null and void! The states have the duty to nullify unconstitutional mandates from the federal government it clear to me that senator Senator McEachin is only an pirate that has the federal government interest in mind.

Sen. McEachin is correct regarding the governor’s oath to uphold the Constitution, but beyond that he is in error.  Nullification has been recognized historically as one of the primary means by which states ‘bind down’ the federal government by the ‘chains of the Constitution.’  The U.S. Constitution will be upheld and the union will be preserved only if Nullification is practiced.  As early as 1798 it was argued that the principle of nullification is entailed in the 10th amendment, and that it is the duty, not the choice, of the legislatures to practice it.  We the people need to replace every legislator who is unwilling to do so.  For further reading, see Tom Woods -‘Nullification’

What piffle these nullificants peddle.  The arbitor of what powers the Constitution gives the Federal Government and what it gives the States—and what it gives neither—is called The Supreme Court of The United States.
Yes, I know that interpreting the Constitution is not a power explicitly given the Court in the Constitution, but this power was presumed by those who wrote the Constitution and settled in Marbury v. Madison in 1803.