Utah governor signs Utah Sovereignty Act to disallow federal directives in state | Eastern NC Now

Utah's governor has signed into state law the Utah Sovereignty Act setting up a process where the state legislature can declare that federal directrives violate Utah's state sovereignty and order them not to be enforced in the state.  It is the first US state since the South Carolian Nullification Crisis of 1832-3 to stand up for state sovereignty. 

In that crisis, the South Carolina legislature passed laws nullifying a new and much larger federal tariff and ordered it not to be collected n the state.  They stood strong against President Andrew Jackson's threat to march federal troops into the state, and the federal government eventually backed down and agreed to a more reasonable level of tariffs for the entire country.

Last year, the ruling Conservatives in the Canadian province of Alberta, its oil rich province, adopted the Alberta Sovereignty Act that set up a process where the provincial parliament can declare federal Canadian laws and rules violate Alberta's sovereignty and are null and void in the province.  That law also allows local governments within Alberta to also declare federal rules and laws violate their sovereignty and therefore are null and void.  The Alberta Sovereignty Act has already been formally invoked once to declare that when pending federal environmental rules on oil production / green energy come into force, they will be null and void in Alberta.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/utahs-new-sovereignty-act-will-overrule-federal-government-constitutional

Canadian federal officials responded to the passage of the Alberta Sovereignty Act with a threat to take the province to court.  Alberta's leaders countered that Quebec's secession referendum several decades ago established a precedent for such referenda within Canada, and the federal government trying to play the judicial card could lead to provincial authorities playing the secession referendum card.  Federal officials then went quiet about taking them to court.

https://www.beaufortcountynow.com/post/74604/alberta-invokes-sovereignty-act-to-nullify-canadian-green-energy-regs.html

Several Canadian provinces, including Alberta, also flatly refused to enforce Trudeau's new federal gun control law last year.