
Tenth Amendment scholar and Ayn Rand fan Becky Nordgren.
You may not know Rep. Becky Nordgren, a Republican who lives in Gadsden.
You also may not know that the freshman District 29 representative has a Twitter account. That would probably be because she is not the most prolific tweeter, though she does occasionally praise the works of Ayn Rand and offer the odd 140-character President-Obama-is-trying-to-let-illegal-people-vote conspiracy theory. Both fit well with the book report of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” she posted on her campaign website.
In the wake of Monday’s Supreme Court three-quarter heel turn against states that want to harass funny-talk foreigners until they leave, Rep. Nordgren fired off her first tweet of 2012 and caused a mild stir among Alabama’s political tweeter scene.
After the Supreme Court ruling, it looks like we are going to have to take a stand for State’s Rights!!!!!!
— Becky Nordgren (@RepBeckNordgren) June 25, 2012
The tweet is beautiful for a number of reasons, but we can settle on three:
- It is always good to see an Alabama state official make a public comment vaguely in favor of secession. It validates that we remain a stalwart among these fine United States, with our leaders having not changed all that much from the “Let’s go to war so we can own people!” crew of the mid-19th century to the “Let’s go to war so we can keep them from talkin’ Spanish down at the Walmart!” folks of today.
It’s like Coca-Cola: We don’t really change a classic.We just took out a little cocaine.
- Yelling “States’ rights!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!” means precisely shit in the conversation of what the Supreme Court decided yesterday.
The Court’s decision turned on whether federal law preempted, or trumped, Arizona’s immigration law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause essentially says that if there is an existing federal law or an area of law that the federal government is better suited to handle, and a state then makes a conflicting law on the same subject, the federal law is the one enforced. Our founders thought the clause was necessary to keep the government together and give the central government some teeth when the states did, for example, stupid shit.
Though I suppose stating so much legal reality is unfairly expecting of Nordgren a knowledge of law and government beyond yelling things.
- The number of exclamation marks, of course, mean she is serious.
That sort of civic illiteracy from an elected official always makes one wonder how a leader would react at other great moments in American history.
Luckily, we here at Reran Tragedy like mocking dumb Alabama political people enough to assemble such a guide for how Rep. Nordgren would have reacted to past key Supreme Court decisions.
Brown v. Board.






Congratulations, Alabama House District 29.
You’ve done a thing!
Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. You can like this blog on Facebook and follow it on Twitter @ReranTragedy. You can reach the blog’s author at calalabaster@gmail.com.
The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com

