June 13, 2025 12:43 PM UTC

So Much for "States' Rights," Eh?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republicans in Colorado and across the country have long claimed to be strident supporters of the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

You know the one:

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.

It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans cited the 10th Amendment in their opposition to Obamacare. More recently — in late October 2024, for example — Republican Gabe Evans referenced “states’ rights” as a way to dodge questions about whether or not he would support a federal abortion ban. But “states’ rights” is an ideal that many Republicans seem to only worry about when the President of the United States is a Democrat.

Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, “states’ rights” are suddenly irrelevant. We’ve seen this come up nationally with President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles — a decision that is supposed to be the call of individual state governors. And now we’re seeing it in Colorado for a different reason.

As Noelle Phillips reports for The Denver Post:

When President Donald Trump on Thursday blocked California’s first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, he also stopped Colorado’s requirement that 80% of all vehicle sales in this state be electric by 2032.

Colorado, which had adopted California’s rules two years ago, quickly joined California and nine other states in a lawsuit to challenge the move.

Trump signed a resolution that was approved by Congress last month that aims to quash the country’s most aggressive attempt to phase out gas-powered cars, which are a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. Trump also signed measures to overturn state policies that curb tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks…

…The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission partially adopted California’s rules in 2023, which was allowed under the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations.

In Colorado, the clean cars standards would have required auto manufacturers to make and sell more electric vehicles starting with model year 2027 and increasing each year until 2032, when 82% of all vehicles sold in the state were to be electric. The standard also required new conventional cars and passenger trucks to lower tailpipe emissions.

It was Colorado’s decision to adopt plans to move the state away from gas-powered vehicles. This decision was implicitly supported by the majority of Colorado voters, who have elected Democrats in overwhelming numbers for nearly a decade now. Trump was elected to a second term as President in 2024, though for the third consecutive election he failed to come anywhere close to carrying Colorado.

This doesn’t matter, nor is it relevant that Coloradans have been generally supportive of shifting away from gas-powered vehicles:

Colorado is pushing zero-emission vehicles as it strives to eliminate almost all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Gov. Jared Polis has said he wants more than 2 million electric cars and trucks on the roads by 2035.

But Colorado will not be able to enforce its rules if the California standards are blocked by the president…

…Electric cars have proven to be popular in Colorado.

Electric vehicles made up 25.3% of new vehicles sold in the state in the third quarter of 2024, placing Colorado ahead of California in EV sales. The state has also been investing in infrastructure to support the rising popularity. [Pols emphasis]

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined our state in a lawsuit challenging Trump’s decision to take a dump on states’ rights, which in theory shouldn’t be a difficult case. Regardless, these actions by Trump demonstrate another point in a series of contradictory moves in which Republicans claim support for the 10th Amendment while simultaneously working to override state decisions. If you’re wondering if folks such as Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton) have spoken out against Trump’s decision to overrule state decisions…well, you know the answer to that question [crickets].

As CNN explains, this is particularly confusing given recent calls for states to take on the responsibilities of federal agencies such as FEMA:

Trump promised to “wean” the country off federal disaster relief and wind down FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Cleaning up after hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes should be a state function, he said.

“A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday…

…Trump is trying to end the Department of Education in part because he says he wants to return more power over education to the states. At the same time, he’s threatening state universities and school systems that want to prioritize a diverse environment. Trump has done all he can to strong-arm American institutions into ending diversity programs that are a reaction to the country’s complicated racial past and is instead treating the inclusion of trans women in gendered sports as a major civil rights issue.

As we’ve learned over the years, hypocrisy is a feature, and not a bug, for many Republican politicians (including Trump and Evans). Rather than pointing out this hypocrisy in the future, journalists and other political observers need to stop taking Republicans seriously when candidates claim that their solution to any big issue is to “leave it up to the states.”