States' rights, until a state does something they don't like.

Marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812), so it stays federally illegal even though more than 38 states have legalized medical or recreational use. In Gonzales v. Raich (2005) the Supreme Court held that Congress's Commerce Clause power lets it criminalize marijuana grown and consumed entirely within one state, overriding California's medical-cannabis law. It is the baseline case: where a state expands freedom in a direction the federal government opposes, federal supremacy wins.

• U.S. Code — Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 812 (Schedule I)
• Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)

Section 9 of Executive Order 13768 (January 25, 2017) directed the Attorney General and the Department of Homeland Security to make jurisdictions that decline to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement ineligible for federal grants. The Justice Department then attached immigration conditions to Byrne JAG law-enforcement grants. Federal courts blocked much of it: the Seventh Circuit ruled against the grant conditions in City of Chicago v. Sessions, and the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction in a parallel case. This is federal coercion aimed at overriding local law-enforcement policy, the opposite of leaving it to the locality.

• Federal Register — EO 13768, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States (§9)
• City of Chicago v. Sessions (7th Cir. 2018)

On September 27, 2019, the Trump EPA and NHTSA published a joint rule withdrawing the Clean Air Act waiver that let California set its own greenhouse-gas and zero-emission-vehicle standards, and declaring such state standards preempted by federal law. Thirteen other states had adopted California's stricter rules under Section 177 of the Clean Air Act. The federal government used its authority specifically to stop a state from setting a tougher standard than Washington wanted.

• Federal Register — SAFE Vehicles Rule Part One: One National Program (84 FR 51310)

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) the Supreme Court overturned Roe and said the abortion question was returned to the people and their elected representatives. About three months later, on September 13, 2022, Senator Lindsey Graham introduced S.4840, which would impose a nationwide criminal ban on abortions at 15 weeks or more, with penalties up to five years in prison. A federal ban would override any state that chose to protect access, which cuts directly against the leave-it-to-the-states rationale the decision was sold on. The bill was introduced, not enacted; the contradiction is in the sequence.

• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022)
• Congress.gov — S.4840, 117th Congress (Graham 15-week federal ban)

The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act (HB 2127) was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on June 14, 2023, effective September 1, 2023. It bars cities and counties from enacting or enforcing local ordinances that exceed state law across broad fields including labor, agriculture, natural resources, and finance, wiping out rules such as mandatory water breaks for construction workers. It shows local control abandoned inside a red state, with the legislature overriding city autonomy. The same actors who invoke states' rights against Washington do not extend the logic to their own cities.

• Texas Legislature — HB 2127 history (signed June 14, 2023)
• Texas Legislature — HB 2127 enrolled text

H.R.38, introduced January 3, 2025 by Representative Richard Hudson with 189 cosponsors, would require every state to honor concealed-carry eligibility from any other state, and by its own text preempts most state and local laws on concealed carry. That would force states with stricter gun laws, such as California and New York, to accept permits issued under looser standards elsewhere. It is a federal override of state authority pushed by the same coalition that champions states' rights on other issues. As of its latest action it had only been placed on the Union Calendar and had not passed either chamber.

• Congress.gov — H.R.38, 119th Congress (Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act)

H.J.Res.88, sponsored by Representative John Joyce, nullified the EPA's January 2025 waiver for California's Advanced Clean Cars II program and became Public Law 119-16 on June 12, 2025; companion resolutions revoked the clean-truck and heavy-duty waivers. Congress acted even though the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian had concluded the waivers are not rules subject to the Congressional Review Act. Six years after the 2019 revocation, the federal government again reached in to strike down a state's stricter standard, this time bending its own procedural rules to do it.

• Congress.gov — H.J.Res.88, 119th Congress (revoking the Advanced Clean Cars II waiver)
• Congress.gov — H.J.Res.88 text (Public Law 119-16)

Where it lands. The cases above are documented facts, and together they show a principle that is honored when a state does the favored thing and overridden when it does not: emissions, immigration, cannabis, abortion, guns, and local ordinances. What we do not do is stamp a motive on any single vote. A defender can argue each case on its own merits, that national uniformity in commerce or gun-carry is a legitimate federal interest, that a nationwide floor on abortion is a moral position, not a federalism betrayal. Those arguments exist, and we carry them. But they are arguments about outcomes, and states' rights was sold as a principle about who decides, not which side wins. When the who-decides answer flips to match the preferred outcome every time, a reasonable person may ask whether the principle was ever about federalism at all. We grade that SOME SMOKE: a documented pattern, and a motive that is posed, not proven.

• Synthesis of the Federal Register, SCOTUS, congress.gov, and Texas Legislature records above; motive is posed, not asserted