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If he pushes it, it will work out quite well for the Federal Government. He won't push it though, he'll give in if a judge tells him to.
They roll in with overwhelming force, take him, and win. You don't really think the state police are going to try to fight the military (or a nationalized Texas National Guard for that matter), do you?
Remind me again, Nybbler, about those calls for local police not to co-operate with the Feds/ICE when it comes to arresting illegal immigrants?
That sure seems like thinking state authorities can ignore or refuse to help a federal authority? Someone better warn Mayor Lightfoot about the overwhelming force that's going to roll in and take her!
The local police don't need to co-operate with the arrest of Abbott if it comes to that, they just need to get out of the way.
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The Texas national guard(and the other state national guard forces in Texas under Texan command) would refuse federalization orders if Greg Abbott came up with some kind of sovereign citizen tier bullshit(he is, after all, an accomplished constitutional lawyer) as for why they have the right to. That’s almost literally the story of operation lone star.
This would then cause a constitutional crisis that paralyzes everyone.
You’re forgetting the fact that Austin is in Austin. If this happened the national media would stir up George Floyd-level mob of “patriotic citizens” who would storm the governor’s mansion and the state capitol. If the Texas National Guard fired upon these protesters, it would be Fort Sumter all over again.
The Texas government relocating top executive functioning to Lubbock, Corpus Christi, or Tyler for particularly controversial decisions is a matter of routine, and even if it wasn’t Texas police are more willing than average to turn on the firehoses and Austin doesn’t have full control of its own PD anyways- state troopers patrol the streets on an ordinary beat.
It’s true that the entire government can’t be moved, but it doesn’t have to and Greg Abbott relocating to Tyler for a while and some protestors getting beaten by cops is a step on the escalation ladder, not a nuclear launch.
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Is there any precedent, particularly in the past 50 or so years, where any sitting Governor got arrested for Federal Crimes without resistance from the State the Governor presided over?
I'll go ahead and give you the one I can think of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich#Impeachment,_removal_from_office,_trial
And in that case they had no support in their own legislature and had indeed violated the state's laws as well.
Do you think Texas would impeach Abbot over such an arrest?
I think the downside for the Federal Government taking such a step is so vastly disproportionate to the upside that it would be absurd to imagine them attempting it. So the State police aren't going to 'fight' the military, but what do you expect the Federal Government to do if state forces merely 'obstruct' their attempts to arrest the governor, say by erecting roadblocks and refusing to stand aside for the arresting officers.
Who fires the first shot?
"Putting him in Federal Prison" entails giving him some measure of due process and a chance to have a hearing and thus isn't going to be a quick fix to the alleged issue.
Everything with precedent happened a first time. The last time it came close was the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door". Alabama governor George Wallace yielded rather than be arrested.
Destroy the roadblocks and forcibly move the officers aside if it comes to that. But the state forces won't actually attempt to intervene bodily; they'll yield.
No, they just put him in for contempt on the word of the judge who gave the order.
Again this is without precedent, so I don't think anyone can be confident in this outcome.
In the vast majority of times the question of the State's authority to resist Federal intervention has arisen, the whole situation gets put on hold and fast-tracked to the Supreme Court. Since that's one of the main reasons they exist.
So understand that I can envision the scenario where Abbot backs down after a SCOTUS ruling establishing that he's apparently in the wrong, but I have a much, much harder time envisioning (and ascribe low probability to) Federal agents immediately jumping to arrest a sitting Governor on a contempt order where there is any probability that the State government declines to cooperate and there's likely an immediate appeal.
I mean Jesus, there IS precedent of Federal Agents Attempting to serve warrants in Texas wherein the party on the other side declined to cooperate. It was a debacle all around and I doubt that the FedGov has really forgotten that lesson.
Likewise, FedGov has folded in more recent memory when faced with CIVILIAN resistance. FedGov didn't just roll through the barricades and easily arrest those involved. It was way messier overall.
Cliven Bundy is, as of now, still a free man. Strange to see that FedGov can be cowed by a rancher out of Nevada and yet conclude they would simply steamroll the Governor of one of the largest states in the Country without a second thought.
Anyhow, I doubt any of this comes to fruition, I just think "they'll put him in Federal Prison" is not the easy checkmate move you're asserting.
There is plenty of precedent to throw people in jail for contempt on the word of the judge who claimed the contempt. That's how contempt works.
The precedents are now in place; no need to wait. The Insurrection Act exists, and the National Guard can be federalized at the word of the President.
Steamrollering Cliven Bundy doesn't politically benefit anyone; the bureaucracy might do it on its own but it doesn't help the political set. Steamrolling Abbott with a sufficient legal fig leaf is like steamrolling Wallace back in the day -- it shows who is in charge.
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Strange for you to, in response to /u/the_nybbler predicting that the Feds will use overwhelming force to roll over any state resistance, bring up Waco siege as an example of Feds having trouble with serving warrants. Yeah, next time they have troubles, they do another Waco, why not?
Because Waco was considered an ur-example of a poorly run operation that resulted in more carnage than was really necessary and the exact sort of collateral damage (women, kids) that should be avoided whenever possible.
It lasted 51 days on top of it all, so for a long time they DID repel the government's ability to serve the warrant.
At least, consider how the most recent popular documentary about it was received. I don't think public opinion on the situation was favorable to the state, and would the President really want to have that kind of massacre on their hands?
I dunno, there was no major upside for the Government regarding how that turned out. It is fathomable that they might risk that sort of event again for a sufficiently important goal, but I doubt they'd be eager to do so.
Pretty sure you’re wrong. Violent persecution of religious sects is surprisingly popular.
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Citation needed, I think. The government investigated and repeatedly cleared itself of wrongdoing. Nobody was held accountable in any way or suffered any consequence. The government won every lawsuit filed against it. The most they would admit is that some information about the use of incendiary devices was withheld, for which unspecified disciplinary action was pursued against unspecified individuals, with undisclosed outcome. The government's position was and remains that they did a pretty good job and that bad PR is a result of disinformation and conspiracy theories.
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Public opinion at the time was absolutely favorable to the state; the general sentiment was the Branch Davidians were a bunch of religious wackos who molested kids and shot at the government and deserved what was coming to them. ATF ended up looking utterly incompetent, but that was the worst of it for the government.
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