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The Federal Supremacy Clause is the formal text by which Federal Law generally trumps state law if the two are in explicit direct conflict as quoted below from the U.S. Constitution:

Article VI, Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

However, does this specific clause also preempt portions of State Constitutions? That is, if the Federal Government passes a law that is in direct conflict with a portion of a State's Constitution, does that portion of the State's Constitution become preempted in the same fashion as a conflicting state law would?

isakbob
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1 Answers1

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Yes. The quote you provided says so explicitly:

The Laws of the United States ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ... any Thing in the Constitution ... of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

For a prominent example, you could look to Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015):

The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.

As a side note, pre-emption is not limited to cases of "explicit direct conflict."

There is no doubt that Congress may withdraw specified powers from the States by enacting a statute containing an express preemption provision. ... State law must also give way to federal law in at least two other circumstances. First, the States are precluded from regulating conduct in a field that Congress, acting within its proper authority, has determined must be regulated by its exclusive governance. ... The intent to displace state law altogether can be inferred from a framework of regulation so pervasive that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it or where there is a federal interest so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.

Second, state laws are preempted when they conflict with federal law. This includes cases where compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility ... and those instances where the challenged state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.

Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 399–400 (2012).

bdb484
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