Does a governor have a constitutional duty to abide by the decisions of a Supreme Court?
Not too long ago, Huck seemed to think that a governor did have such a duty. Here's Huckabee on FOX News, November 14, 2007, explaining that he had no choice but to raise taxes as governor of Arkansas, since he had a court order hanging over his head:
That was in the context of [an Arkansas] Supreme Court order that we had to fund education at a higher level. The legislators had come down to the special session and there was all kinds of talk about, well, this tax increase or that revenue possibility is out of the question, dead on arrival. … Now we were at the point, with a court order over our heads – we were going to have to improve our schools.
So, in this version of Huckabee's world, a Governor is under an obligation to enforce and implement the law as the Supreme Court interprets it. Agree or disagree, but that was Huck's position on the separation of powers in November, 2007. Fast forward to this week, where Mike Huckabee explains that governors are not under any obligation to comply with a court order with which they personally disagree (in this case, a court ruling on gay marriage):
You know, it’s interesting, the California [Supreme Court] decision as well as the Massachusetts decision, I don’t think should ever have been implemented by the governors, Schwarzenegger and Romney... They were both decisions that the governors simply could have said the court has said that we have to do it, but let them enforce it. Because those were administrative decisions that had to put that in place and there was no mandate.
As usual, the Huckster adopts whatever theory of governance serves his purposes at the time. When he needed court orders to be inviolate in order to cover his butt, he pronouced them so. When he sees the chance to score some cheap political points against a political rival, supreme court orders become merely advisory. Classic Huckster.








