Never Forget! Republicans Are the Party of States' Rights (Except Their Right to Regulate Corporations)

So the House of Representatives just passed a bill that would prohibit states from requiring the labeling of genetically modified food. I mention this not so much for anything about the merits (as to which, my best impression is that there's no good reason to think GMOs are problematic, but also I don't see any real harm in labeling them; if people want to be idiots that's sort of their business and it doesn't feel right to trick them into doing what you think is best for them) but because of the constitutional politics of it. Because, y'know. The operative words of the bill are "prohibit states." Which is not a very states' rights-y thing to do. To be clear: this is absolutely constitutional. Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce and to preempt any state laws contrary to its own regulations. That isn't, or at least shouldn't be, in controversy. But anyone who really believed in the political values of federalism, in the modern, pro-state sense of that word, would oppose this bill.

But of course, the people who passed it are precisely the ones who like to go on and on about states' rights. So the next time any Republican talks about how, I dunno, the Voting Rights Act or whatever violates states' rights, just remind them of the time that they passed a bill that would literally remove the states' right to protect their citizens from what they perceived as a potentially threatening or deceptive trade practice. The main state's right they care about is the right to discriminate; if there's a conflict with corporate rights, federalism is going to lose every time.