The statements at issue:

“After weeks of national media attention and debate among residents, members of the Nelson City Council stuck to their guns and unanimously voted to enact a law that requires every head of household within its city limits to own a firearm.”

City Councilman Duane Cronic said a section of the ordinance “could exempt basically any of Nelson’s about 1,300 residents; the ordinance is meant simply as a message to any criminals and was never intended to be enforced.”

“Nelson Police Chief Heath Mitchell, the city’s lone police officer, said he was happy to see the law added to the books, and he too hopes it will help keep crime out of Nelson.  He admitted, though, that it will most likely never be enforced.”

 – Selected paragraphs from a story by Joshua Sharpe in The Cherokee Tribune in Canton, GA, on April 3, describing the approval of the “Family Protection Ordinance” by a 5-0 vote of the City Council in the town of Nelson, GA, on April 1.

We checked the Constitution, and…

If the U.S. Congress were to pass a law like the one just enacted in Nelson, Georgia, there is little doubt that it would violate the Constitution.  Congress has no power to order individuals to buy a product they do not want; that was one of the conclusions the Supreme Court drew last year even as it upheld the new federal health care law based on other congressional powers.   And Congress has no power to implement the Second Amendment by compelling everyone to “keep and bear arms.”

But the constitutional answer is not so easy when a local government passes such a law.  Local governments share with state governments very wide authority to pass laws under what are called “police powers” – that is, laws that seek to protect public health and safety.  Those are core functions of local and state government, reserved to them by the Constitution’s 10th Amendment.

But there may be limits on the use of such powers.  A local government may not have broad powers of “home rule,” because state law may curb the expansive use of such authority.  In Maine, for example, when a town sought recently to pass a gun ownership mandate like the one in Nelson, the state attorney general ruled that was beyond local authority; state law controlled the issue of gun control, the official said.

If a local government does as the city legislators in Nelson did, and includes in a gun ownership mandate a broad exemption for anyone who objects, the law would be very difficult to enforce because each head of household would have to be questioned on whether they object.  That could keep local police busy full time.

But suppose an ambitious local police force decided at least to attempt to enforce it: Can gun ownership be compelled?  The Second Amendment does not deal with that issue at all; it is an amendment that, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, protects a personal right to have a gun, but it does not compel the exercise of that right.

The issue, then, is whether such a mandate could be justified as a public safety measure. Assuming that the particular community was not under a siege by criminals, there would be serious questions about whether a gun ownership requirement was an intrusion upon individual liberty, one not truly supported by public safety concerns.

If, however, there had been a serious wave of criminal activity locally, a local government might argue that it was necessary to deputize and arm the whole of its citizenry for community defense – rather like the militia from America’s colonial days.   (Today, Second Amendment advocates argue that it is a significant part of the history of gun rights that colonial residents were, indeed, ordered to be armed.)

Even with a crime wave in a given community, though, a local resident who chose – for whatever reason – not to get a gun might be able to convince a court that an ownership mandate for everyone was a form of official coercion not necessary to promote public safety.  The argument might be that a state government could be expected to step in, with its stronger law enforcement resources, to quell widespread crime in such a community.

In the case of the specific ordinance in Nelson, even the City Council apparently did not mean what it said in seeking to impose the ownership mandate.  The first paragraph of the ordinance makes that command, requiring all heads of households to have a gun and ammunition as a way to protect the “general welfare of the city and its inhabitants.”

It is the second paragraph, however, that spells out the exceptions to this requirement, and that includes those who object to having a gun.   That is why the sponsor of the measure, City Councilman Duane Cronic, said it would not be enforced, and why the local police chief echoed that view.

Why was it passed?  The councilman’s answer: “This is a big security sign that says ‘you really don’t know what you’re getting into, potential criminal; move along.’ ”

But, one might ask, would a determined criminal conclude that Nelson was an armed enclave, or not?

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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In November 2012, voters in the two states approved legalization referendums, despite the current federal statutes on controlled substances that make medical and recreational marijuana a Schedule 1 controlled substance nationally.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper have talked with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Justice Department officials about their states’ plans to enact voter-approved marijuana laws.

About one month ago, Holder told a Senate hearing he expected a Justice Department ruling to be made on the matter.

“We’ve had good communication. … I expect that we will have an ability to announce what our policy is going to be relatively soon,” Holder said.

Since his appearance on March 6 in front of a Senate committee, Holder has remained silent, following his department’s policy of saying little or nothing about the state laws in Washington and Colorado.

Inslee and Hickenlooper have been pressing the Justice Department to file a lawsuit or to define which parts of the federal laws they plan to enforce, since both states need to spend considerable money building a system to control the manufacturing, distribution, sales, and taxation of marijuana.

Voters in the two states chose to legalize marijuana for recreational use following 18 states that approved it for medical use. Neither Colorado nor Washington’s law allows public marijuana use, either through smoking or internal consumption.

Legally, the states will have a tough road in court if Holder decides to sue to overturn the laws.

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution., in Article VI, Clause 2, states that in a conflict of state and federal laws, the federal law is the supreme law of the land:

“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, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

States can contest the constitutionality of a federal law through the court system, and hope that a law is overturned. But they can’t decide to ignore a federal law—at least in theory.

In addition, 18 states have made medical marijuana legal, and any decision from Holder on the enforcement of federal laws in Washington and Colorado could affect the status of medical marijuana in other states.

The attorney general has targeted medical marijuana dispensaries in recent years, but not smokers.

In Colorado, legal marijuana stores aren’t scheduled to be open until 2014 at the earliest. And in Washington, the state’s Liquor Control Board has until December 2013 to set up its distribution system.

Washington hired a marijuana consultant, Dr. Mark Kleiman, in March to help oversee its development of a marijuana distribution system. Governor Inslee also wants the board to crack down on bars that let patron’s smoke on the premises.

And then there’s the issue of taxing pot in Washington. Some lawmakers want to tax the brand names and trademarks that will appear on packages of marijuana. The state’s excise tax could be steep.

In Colorado, as many as four taxes could be levied on marijuana bought legally: local sales tax, state sales tax, an excise tax, and a marijuana sales tax.

Those taxes would need to be approved in another voter referendum in November 2013.

All these efforts in Washington and Colorado will involve a lot of work in state legislatures, which could all be wiped out or put on hold if the Justice Department sues the two states.

In the end, the Justice Department could just wait to see what happens as the two states try to work out a system.

Erwin Chemerinsky and Allen Hopper, writing in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, state the argument that states can serve as an experimental lab when it comes to social and legal policies.

“Beyond the legal arguments, there are policy reasons for the federal government to not interfere with the Colorado and Washington laws. An important feature of federalism is that states are empowered to serve as laboratories for experimentation with social policies,” they say.

“As the nation embarks on perhaps the most significant public debate about drug policy since President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs, Washington and Colorado’s experiment should be allowed to go forward. The country can then assess whether it succeeded or failed.”

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Pennsylvania and Utah are the only two states that have kept monopolies on the sales of beer, wine, and spirits in the decades after the 18th Amendment was repealed and Prohibition ended in 1933.

The law passed on party lines, with most Republicans voting for it, while Democrats were united in their opposition.

Democratic leaders in the state senate have asked for 30 to 60 days of additional hearings and have said revisions are expected before, or if, the law comes up for a vote on the Senate floor.

The complicated resolution will privatize sales to consumers, taking away much of the power from the state’s Liquor Control Board, one of the biggest buyers of booze in the world.

In its current form, the law would require the Liquor Control Board to sell most of its proprietary state stores to private interests, with people who have dedicated beer distributorships getting the first chance to buy licenses. Grocery stores would be able to sell wine, though probably not beer, and big-box stores and pharmacies would sell wine, with limited beer sales.

Currently, Pennsylvania consumers need to travel to specially designated state-controlled stores to buy wine and spirits, with limited amounts of beer sold at bars, restaurants, and a handful of grocery stores. Cases of beer can only be sold by select beer distributors.

The law’s future in the Pennsylvania Senate is far from certain, as a united coalition of unions, social conservatives, drunk-driving opponents, and Democratic lawmakers oppose it for various reasons.

On Thursday, interests representing the beer industry seemed split on the bill.

Historically, that coalition has been very successful in articulating its points and rallying opposition across political and social lines.

The supporters of the liquor privatization law include Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and many Republicans, tea party members, and fiscal conservatives. The state’s voters also have approved, in various polls, moves to allow liquor sales at retail and convenience stores, like many other states, and more products in more stores.

But Corbett’s powerful predecessors lost the booze battle in previous years to a fight that has its roots in the second term of former Governor Gifford Pinchot in 1933.

Related Story: A look at Pinchot’s liquor control system in 1933

Corbett and privatization supporters hope to realize $800 million from the sales of liquor and beer sales licenses. The money would go into the state’s education budget.

Privatization opponents will also point to the struggles of another state, Washington, which recently ended its Prohibition-era battle over liquor.

In November 2011, Washington voters decided in a referendum to end its Pennsylvania-style liquor system. Prices were higher for hard liquor after privatization, reports a local newspaper as of January 2013, because of taxes that were tacked onto the law.

Taxes aren’t currently part of Pennsylvania’s proposed law, except that the state will continue to levy an 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax on liquor products, which dates back to 1936.

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Editor’s Note: If you are in the Philadelphia area in the next few weeks, check out the National Constitution Center’s acclaimed feature exhibition, American Spirits: The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition, on view through April 28.  For more info, go to prohibition.constitutioncenter.org.

Source: United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nullification is the idea that in a system of state and federal laws, one law passed by a government can be overruled by another.

For example, if the state of New Jersey barred watching reality TV shows and an amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights to watch “Storage Wars,” one law trumps the other.

In the case of gun control, a Pennsylvania state lawmaker, State Senator John H. Eichelberger Jr., is introducing a law that makes it illegal for the federal government to enforce its gun control laws within his state.

Eichelberger joins another state legislator, Daryl Metcalfe, in proposing Pennsylvania laws that seek to nullify the enforcement of federal laws. Other states have also proposed their own nullification laws that would trump federal gun laws.

And in the case of marijuana, nine former leaders of the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement that they want the federal government to nullify newly passed state laws in Colorado and Washington, which legalize recreational marijuana use under controlled circumstances.

Former DEA administrator Peter Bensinger said nullification was a “no brainer.”

“It is outrageous that a lawsuit hasn’t been filed in federal court yet,” said Bensinger.

What each story has in common is the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Article VI, Clause 2, states that in a conflict of state and federal laws, the federal law is the supreme law of the land:

“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, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Some proponents of states’ rights and the 10th Amendment don’t agree with the concept. But when challenged, the Supreme Court has decided that federal laws can’t be nullified by the states.

During the 1950s, a group of Southern states passed laws to block the desegregation of public schools. The court ruled in Cooper v. Aaron that the state of Arkansas couldn’t nullify a federal law and that the court had the power to make that decision.

States can contest the constitutionality of a federal law through the court system, and hope that a law is overturned. But they can’t decide to ignore a federal law—at least in theory.

That’s where the marijuana controversy comes into play in Colorado and Washington state, and in states that have passed their own medical marijuana laws.

The current federal statute on controlled substances makes medical and recreational marijuana a Schedule 1 controlled substance that is illegal nationally.

However, 18 states have made medical marijuana legal, and Colorado and Washington are now allowing people to smoke pot for fun under certain circumstances.

The administration of President Barack Obama faces a problem. Attorney General Eric Holder hasn’t made a decision yet about taking Colorado and Washington to court to invalidate their recreational marijuana laws.

If Holder does go to court, what does that mean for the states that have medical marijuana laws on the books? The attorney general has targeted medical marijuana dispensaries in recent years, but not smokers. Will those states also face lawsuits?

What if the Obama administration reaches a compromise with Colorado and Washington to let parts of their recreational marijuana laws stand?

Those state laws effectively nullify federal law, which isn’t exactly a precedent that the Justice Department would want to set for states that ignore possible federal gun control laws.

There’s some hope that Congress may act to change the federal statutes about marijuana use. And it seems unlikely, at this point, that major gun control laws will be coming from Congress in the near future.

But that could change if a compromise is reached in Congress on background checks on gun purchases. Several states strongly oppose the idea, and some local lawmakers have proposed state nullification laws to make gun registration illegal.

In some cases, the proposed state laws provide for the arrest of any federal official trying to enforce a gun-control law.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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Newly sworn-in Governor Jay Inslee was in the nation’s capital on Tuesday to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and Justice Department officials about his state’s decriminalization of recreational marijuana use.

After the meeting, Inslee said the state was moving forward with making rules about growing, processing and selling marijuana, under very controlled circumstances.

Washington state and Colorado both legalized pot in November 2012 voter referendums that seemingly violate federal laws.

In November, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper reportedly spoke with Holder about the same issue on a phone call.

Voters in the two states chose to legalize it for recreational use following 18 states that approved it for medical use.

The marijuana issue is complicated, since the federal government considers marijuana (both medical and recreational) a Schedule 1 controlled substance that is illegal. But it also doesn’t have the financial and human resources to arrest marijuana users in Washington state and Colorado.

So while federal law is designed to trump state law when it comes to marijuana use, the reality is that the two sides will need to reach some type of compromise.

Leaders like Inslee and Hickenlooper are pressing the Justice Department to file a lawsuit or to define which parts of the federal laws they plan to enforce.

Inslee, a Democrat, said during his election campaign that he didn’t support legalization, but he would honor the voters’ wishes as governor.

Now, as governor, Inslee is facing several offshoots of the federal-state legal conflict that are problematic.

Earlier this week, two stories highlighted legal wrinkles in allowing recreational marijuana use in conjunction with federal resources.

In one instance, farmers in Washington have been running into problems if they want to grow marijuana as a cash crop: The agricultural research they need may come from state universities that get federal funds.

Also, recreational marijuana is posing an interesting problem at ski resorts, which pose to benefit from an influx of newly interested tourists. Many ski resorts in Washington and Colorado use federally owned land, says the website On the Snow, and the Justice Department has made it clear that pot use won’t be tolerated on federal property.

David Cronheim, an attorney who specializes in skiing legal issues, told On the Snow that the federal law rules supreme when it comes to marijuana use on the slopes.

“Where state law conflicts with federal law, the federal law controls. That’s known as the supremacy clause,” said Cronheim. “Personally, from a lawyer’s perspective, I think it’s a dangerous proposition when states try to nullify federal law. We fought a civil war over that.”

Link: Read more about the Supremacy Clause

Neither Colorado nor Washington’s law allows public marijuana use, either through smoking or internal consumption.

Officials in Washington state were scheduled to have their first public meeting on Tuesday night to discuss how to draw up rules about public marijuana sales.

On Monday, Washington state officials said they expected to exercise close control over the cultivation and processing of marijuana, in order to avoid conflict with federal authorities.

Washington’s Liquor Control Board will regulate the process.

Marijuana advocates also received a court defeat on Tuesday when a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., rejected a petition to remove the substance from the list of Schedule 1 controlled substances.

Medical marijuana groups had filed the petition, which was earlier rejected in 2011 by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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The two states legalized recreational marijuana use, under controlled circumstances, in November voter referendums, and the governors of Colorado and Washington have signed the acts into law.

President Barack Obama and his administration have released just a few statements since then in the debate over a central constitutional issue: Do state governments or the federal government have the right to make marijuana laws?

Issues of states’ rights and federalism date back to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and in this current case, the Obama administration is signaling that Congress—and not the president—needs to resolve the conflict.

What’s less clear is the administration’s internal stance on the issue of legalization.

On Tuesday, Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, responded to several citizen petitions to the White House with a brief statement and a reference to the definitive policy statement from President Obama—his December television interview with Barbara Walters.

“It is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana,” Kerlikowske said. He then referenced recent interview with Walters in which President Obama addressed the legalization of marijuana.

Link: Read full petition response

A day earlier, Kerlikowske, the top federal drug enforcement official, told an audience in San Francisco that he didn’t have influence with the Justice Department, but he had clear opinions on the issue of legalization in Colorado and Washington.

The San Francisco Examiner quoted Kerlikowske as saying, “The Obama administration strongly believes it is a false choice.”

In his interview with Walters, President Obama said in December  that “it does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that’s legal.”

And the official White House statement from Kerlikowske on Tuesday highlighted the following quote from the Walters interview: “This is a tough problem because Congress has not yet changed the law. I head up the executive branch; we’re supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we’re going to need to have is a conversation about how do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it’s legal.”

Marijuana supporters already pointed out in December that the president has the power under the Controlled Substance Act to change the law, and remove pot from the Schedule 1 list of drugs, without consulting Congress.

Under the Federal Code, under Section 811 of Title 21, the U.S. attorney general, after a lengthy petition and consultation process with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, can move a drug to a less-restrictive schedule. It would need to approve a review petition first.

The most recent petition was accepted in 2003 by the Bush administration for a preliminary review and is the current subject of a legal battle after it was denied by the Obama administration in 2009.

As of December, there were some members of Congress who were supportive of a legislative solution.

Representative Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) has introduced a House bill that would allow the state laws about marijuana to pre-empt the federal statute.

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Representatives Barney Frank and Ron Paul had also introduced a similar bill in 2011.

Currently, public opinion is growing in support of the laws in Colorado and Washington. A recent Gallup Poll says that about 64 percent of those polled nationally believe the federal government shouldn’t overrule the new laws in Colorado and Washington. People were evenly split about having legal marijuana in general.

Leaders in Washington and Colorado have also pressed the Obama administration for a decision. The two states face significant investments in building a legalized marijuana infrastructure for recreational consumers, and the concerns in Colorado and Washington are that the Obama administration won’t act until after that money is spent.

What also complicates matters has been the Obama administration’s stance on medical marijuana, which has included aggressive raids on medical marijuana dispensaries within states that legalized it.

And on Monday, a Southern California man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running what prosecutors claimed was an illegal medical marijuana business for profit. The state law says the medical marijuana can be grown in nonprofit collectives.

One recent proponent of legalized marijuana in California is the state’s lieutenant governor and potential gubernatorial candidate, Gavin Newsom. (The current governor, Jerry Brown, spoke out against legalization during his campaign in 2010, but said in November 2012 the federal government should respect the will of states that have chosen legalization.)

“These laws just don’t make sense anymore. It’s time for politicians to come out of the closet on this,” he told The New York Times in December.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Editor’s note: Gavin Newsome will be at a free event hosted at the Center on February 3. For more information, go to constitutioncenter.org/calendar/gavin-newsom-government-in-the-digital-age

The Salt Lake Temple in 1897, draped with the U.S. flag used in the 1896 statehood celebration. Source: George Reed Collection, University of Utah.

Between 1847 and 1868, about 60,000 Mormon emigrants traveled across the country, most on foot in handcart companies.

When the initial company arrived in what is now the Salt Lake Valley, their leader, Brigham Young, declared, “This is the place.” The area they began to settle was soon claimed as U.S. territory as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War.

The Mormons, or members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had traveled westward in search of religious and political freedom, and many felt statehood was the path to ensure those freedoms.

The steps for creating a new state are outlined in Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution.

In 1849 those living in the Utah Territory petitioned to become part of the Union as the state of Deseret. Congress denied their request, primarily because the population was too small and the boundaries were too large (it covered not only present-day Utah but most of Nevada and Arizona and parts of several other western states). In 1850, Congress created the Utah Territory, which was smaller than the proposed Deseret.

Statehood petitions were also submitted in 1856, 1862, 1867, 1872, and 1882. But the Mormons, the majority residents of the territory, faced several challenges.

Most significant was lawmakers’ and others’ hostility toward the church’s practice of polygamy, which the Republican Party had denounced as one of the “twin relics of barbarism” along with slavery. (The church opposed slavery.)

Polygamy was forbidden by a series of federal laws. In addition, a Supreme Court decision in 1879, Reynolds v. U.S., ruled against a Mormon husband who called plural marriage his religious duty as protected by the First Amendment. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite wrote:

“Can a man excuse his practices…because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land.”

In addition, the politics of the territory, which included a Liberal Party made of mostly non-Mormon voters and a People’s Party of mostly Mormon voters, was not clearly aligned with national politics. Also, many non-Mormons disliked Mormons’ dominance in local politics.

The issue of partisan politics was addressed as local leaders encouraged voters to divide along national party lines.

As for the issue of polygamy, in 1890 church president Wilford Woodruff issued a statement officially disavowing the practice of plural marriage by church members.

The statement finally cleared the way for Utah’s statehood. The enabling act for admission was passed in 1894 and required that the state constitution ban polygamy.

On January 4, 1896, President Grover Cleveland proclaimed Utah a state of the Union.

Holly Munson is assistant editor of Constitution Daily and programs coordinator at the National Constitution Center.

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Alaska becomes a state in 1959.

It took Alaska, despite its impressive size and rich history, about 13 years to become a full-fledged state after World War II, and it needed help from Hawaii.

Recently, voters in Puerto Rico decided to ask Congress to consider its petition for statehood after a November referendum. And last month, there was again talk that the District of Columbia should seek to become a state.

Those two options seem long shots at the moment, because of the complicated process—and politics—of becoming a state.

In the case of Alaska, it started its legal quest for statehood in 1946, when voters approved its referendum. It took years and years of lobbying in Congress to get serious consideration for Alaska’s admittance to the union.

Prior to World War II, Alaska suffered from a bit of an inferiority complex and its own internal politics. Originally called Seward’s Folly after its 1867 purchase from Russia, Alaska came to national attention after its Gold Rush period.

It became a territory in 1912 and started making noise about becoming a state four years later. And its strategic importance became obvious during World War II.

The Democrats during the 1950s favored Alaska as the 49th state, while the Republicans wanted Hawaii admitted by itself. The reason was that each new state gets two U.S. senators and at least one new House member, and the admission of a new state can swing votes in Congress.

The Constitution is vague about the whole process of how a territory becomes a state, delegating the task to Congress.

In Article IV, Section 3, Congress is given the power to decide what states and territories are, but state legislatures would have to approve any act that would combine two existing states or form a new state from parts of other states. (So reuniting Pennsylvania and New Jersey, or Virginia and West Virginia, would be a very difficult task.)

Hawaii both helped and complicated the approval process for Alaska, but a congressional compromise was brokered. Alaska became the 49th state in January 1959, and Hawaii became the 50th state in August 1959.

Puerto Rico’s referendum passed in November and on the surface, it faces bigger challenges than Alaska’s did.

For starters, Puerto Rico has a much bigger population than Alaska or Hawaii did in 1959.

With its population of 3.7 million people, Puerto Rico would be entitled to eight congressional seats, including six seats in the House of Representatives, if it were granted statehood today.

Unless Congress agrees to add the six seats to the House, they would need to be taken from other states.  So an elected member of Congress would need to surrender their seat and agree to redistricting.

Puerto Rico is seen as a Democrat-leaning region, so if the House were to add six new seats, it would also add six new seats in areas controlled by Republicans.

The numbers of seats in the Senate can’t be expanded in the same way, which makes it highly unlikely that a GOP-controlled House would approve of a statehood measure for Puerto Rico.

And Puerto Rico would get eight electoral votes in the next presidential election, which isn’t going to be popular with Republicans.

In the case of the District of Columbia, it already has three electoral votes, thanks to the 23rd Amendment, which was passed in 1961. The District is heavily Democratic, and its admission as a state would tilt the scales more to the Democrats’ liking in Congress.

Outgoing Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a District of Columbia statehood bill last month that would leave a small federal district intact in the Mall area near the White House and the Capitol, and make the rest of the region the state of New Columbia.

In addition to the politics of adding a new state with three Democratic members of Congress, the District of Columbia could face an unusual legal issue.

Since new states are entitled to three electoral votes and the District of Columbia already has three electors under the 23rd Amendment, another amendment may be needed to repeal the 23rd Amendment. Otherwise, the new federal district, consisting of historic buildings, wouldn’t have any full-time residents, but would still have three electoral votes.

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Official White House photo.

The president, however, will leave open the door for federal authorities to arrest people who grow, transport, and sell marijuana in those two states, despite new state laws to the contrary.

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington has cast a new light on the issue of states’ rights. In one recent poll, two-thirds of Americans supported the rights of the two states to make their own laws.

“In Washington and Colorado, you’ve seen the voters speak on this issue. As it is, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions,” the president said in an interview with Barbara Walters.

“It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational users in a state that has said under state law it’s already legal,” Obama said to Walters.

In reality, federal officials rarely prosecute for personal use of marijuana, including for medical reasons. The drug is considered a Schedule 1 controlled substance, but federal raids in recent years have focused on distributors in the 18 states where medical marijuana is legal, under state law.

Link: Watch preview video

President Obama said personally that he is against legalized marijuana, and that final resolution of the conflict between the two states and the federal government may come down to Congress.

“This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law,” Obama told Walters, in an advance story from ABC. “I head up the executive branch; we’re supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we’re going to need to have is a conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it’s legal?”

President Obama has Attorney General Eric Holder reviewing the legal questions about the two states’ laws, including their possible effects on relations with countries fighting the “war on drugs” with the U.S.

Colorado quietly made the private consumption of marijuana legal on Monday, as Governor John Hickenlooper officially added the law to his state’s constitution. Washington made a similar move before Colorado, but with more fanfare.

Currently, public opinion is growing in support of the laws in Colorado and Washington. A recent Gallup Poll says that about 64 percent of those polled nationally believe the federal government shouldn’t overrule the new laws in Colorado and Washington. People were evenly split about having legal marijuana in general.

Republicans and Democrats are actually discussing a legislative solution to the marijuana standoff if the Obama administration doesn’t act.

Representative Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) has introduced a House bill that would allow the state laws about marijuana to pre-empt the federal statute.

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Source: United States Fish and Wildlife Service

In another time, and in the absence of the financial debate in Washington, D.C., the fight over marijuana laws would be front-page news.

Colorado quietly made the private consumption of marijuana legal on Monday, as Governor John Hickenlooper officially added the law to his state’s constitution, and announced the move on Twitter and in an email blast. Hickenlooper had until January 5, 2013 to make the decision.

Also quietly, pressure seems to be growing on President Barack Obama’s Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the controversial voter-approved laws, which allow citizens to use marijuana recreationally under controlled circumstances.

Link: Busting some myths about the Founding Fathers and marijuana

Ultimately, the issue could be solved constitutionally by national lawmakers or the Supreme Court. The ability of states to decide their own laws, even ones that conflict with federal statutes, has been a constant sore point since the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.

For now, leaders in Colorado and Washington want to know if Attorney General Eric Holder will move in court to sue them. State leaders need to approve rules about how their marijuana policies will address the sale, manufacture, and transportation of marijuana, and how local law enforcement officers will issue fines, bust illegal growers, and train their staff on the problems.

The two states face significant investments in building a legalized marijuana infrastructure for recreational consumers, and the concerns in Colorado and Washington are that the Obama administration won’t act until after that money is spent.

A spokesperson for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire told the newspaper The Hill this week that the two states need an answer.

“We don’t want to get so far down the road and then have the process stopped,” said Cory Curtis, a spokesman for Governor Gregoire.

Last week, Washington State Liquor Control Board spokesman Brian Smith that his state needs a decision from the federal government as soon as possible.

“We don’t want to go and spend serious resources only to have it stopped by the federal government,” Smith said. “It would sure help Washington state if they weighed in and made clear their expectations.”

The new law in Washington state allows people to smoke marijuana in private, but not in public. They can’t grow their own plants, but they can buy marijuana at state-licensed stores. The marijuana in those stores must come from state-licensed producers and processors.

Adults can possess small amounts of weed in Washington, but it must come from a state-licensed and controlled source, which insures taxes are collected. In short: the system mirrors Washington’s alcohol-sales system.

More than half the revenue from marijuana in Washington will go into the state’s health-care system.

Link: Washington’s laws

Colorado’s laws are somewhat different. People can grow up the six plants at home for personal consumption. They can give up to one ounce of marijuana as a gift to another adult. And they can transport their homegrown marijuana.

The rest is similar to Washington: no public pot puffing and the public sales of marijuana are licensed, controlled, and taxed.

And in Colorado, the first chunk of tax revenues from marijuana sales will go into a fund to build public schools.

Link: Colorado’s laws

In both states, adults who are 21 years old can consumer marijuana; driving high on marijuana beyond a defined limit is illegal; and local counties and cities have the right to determine if they want to have public sales of pot—much like Blue Laws that allow towns and counties to remain “dry” when it comes to alcohol.

So far, the only warning shot from the Obama administration is a friendly reminder that marijuana is a Schedule 1 controlled substance, like heroin, according to federal law.

Here is the mandate issued last week, when the first part of Washington state’s law went into effect, in the form of a statement for a U.S. attorney:

“The Department of Justice is reviewing the legalization initiatives recently passed in Colorado and Washington State. The Department’s responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged. Neither States nor the Executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress. In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance. Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6th in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Members of the public are also advised to remember that it remains against federal law to bring any amount of marijuana onto federal property, including all federal buildings, national parks and forests, military installations, and courthouses.”

Currently, public opinion is growing in support of the laws in Colorado and Washington. A recent Gallup Poll says that about 64 percent of those polled nationally believe the federal government shouldn’t overrule the new laws in Colorado and Washington. People were evenly split about having legal marijuana in general.

Recent Constitution Daily Stories

More states ponder legal marijuana as feds loom
Feds remain AWOL as public pot smoking begins
Homegrown marijuana would be an interesting high court case

So while many people don’t agree with the legalization of marijuana, even more people think the federal government is overstepping its constitutional mandate by getting involved in Colorado and Washington.

And the latest twists in the marijuana saga are signs from within Congress that lawmakers could get involved in the fight down the road.

While there’s a lack of bipartisan spirit in the fiscal cliff talks, Republicans and Democrats are actually discussing a legislative solution to the marijuana standoff if the Obama administration doesn’t act.

Representative Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) has introduced a House bill that would allow the state laws about marijuana to pre-empt the federal statute.

“I just think it’s important to have this conversation about what’s the appropriate role of the federal government and the state government,” she said in an article from the influential publication Roll Call.

Republicans Mike Coffman and Ron Paul are co-sponsors of the bill, and Coffman signed on even though he’s personally opposed to marijuana use.

“I strongly oppose the legalization of marijuana, but I also have an obligation to respect the will of the voters given the passage of this initiative, and so I feel obligated to support this legislation,” Coffman said in November.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.