Last week, the Florida GOP launched a campaign to remove three sitting state supreme court justices who previously ruled against Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL). If this campaign succeeds, Scott will be able to appoint three of the court’s seven justices, giving the Tea Party governor control over nearly half the court.

Today, the Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity — which is chaired by GOP energy billionaire David Koch — joined this effort as well. The Koch group’s first ad attacks the three justices because they joined a 5-2 opinion blocking an unconstitutional ballot initiative seeking to nullify the Affordable Care Act:

Many states, like Ohio, gave their citizens the right to vote against [the Affordable Care Act]. But not Florida. Our own supreme court denied our right to choose for ourselves. Shouldn’t our courts protect our rights to choose?

Watch it:

First of all, the Florida Supreme Court’s decision had nothing whatsoever to do with denying people their “right to choose.” To the contrary, the court removed the unconstitutional ballot initiative after the initiative’s own defenders admitted that the ballot language accompanying this initiative was misleading. So the court’s opinion stood simply for the very banal point that voters should know what they are voting for before they cast a ballot.

More importantly, however, by praising this ballot initiative, the Koch group is also endorsing a misguided constitutional theory known as “nullification.” Because the Constitution provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land,” states simply do not have the authority to block an Act of Congress such as the Affordable Care Act, whether through a ballot initiative or otherwise.

Although nullification was very much in vogue among nineteenth century slaveholders and Civil Rights era segregationists, it has largely been avoided for most of American history because the Constitution speaks so clearly and unambiguously that it is not allowed. Nevertheless, it has experienced a moderate renaissance among Tea Partiers after a right-wing pseudo-historian named Tom Woods published a book defending the idea. Woods also once published an article declaring the Confederacy to be “Christendom’s Last Stand.” In it, he endorsed the view that the Civil War was a battle between “atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other.” He concludes that “[t]he real watershed from which we can trace many of the destructive trends that continue to ravage our civilization today, was the defeat of the Confederate States of America in 1865.”

So the Koch group’s ad does not simply seek to punish three justices for placing the law before conservative ideology and turn Florida’s highest court over to the mercies of a Tea Party governor, it also endorses one of the most outlandish misreadings of the Constitution ever conceived by states’ rights advocates — many of whom later wielded it to defend the most abhorrent practices in American history. The Koch ad demonstrates that one of the most powerful and well-moneyed interest groups in the Republican coalition embraces the worst kinds of constitutional thinking, and that they are eager to seek revenge against a judge or justice who rejects their twisted view of the Constitution. If the Koch group succeeds in taking out these three justices, if will send a clear message to every elected judge in the country that they follow the Constitution at their own peril.

In the name of election integrity, Florida governor Rick Scott (R) has aggressively pursued voter purges, restricted voter registration drives and reduced early voting hours. However, his campaign finance reports reveal Scott’s 2010 campaign paid $5,000 to an accused absentee ballot broker for unspecified “contract labor.”

Before the 2011 municipal elections, 74-year-old Hialeh resident Emelina Llanes was accused of being a boletera, or someone who ostensibly helps voters deliver their ballots, but often tries to influence or bribe voters as they fill them out. Llanes, who worked for Mayor Carlos Hernandez at the time, visited elderly members of the community to talk to them about politics and delivered dozens of ballots.

Though records show Scott hired her for his gubernatorial campaign, her work for him remains unclear. Ballot brokering is one of the few methods of voter fraud that is in fact a problem in Miami-Dade County; other boleteros have been charged with forging signatures and taking advantage of senile voters. The Miami Herald’s report on boleteros may provide some insight into Scott’s payment:

“The ‘boleteros’ hover on the edge of the letter and spirit of the law,” said Christian Ulvert, a top state Democratic campaign consultant who has run races in Little Havana and Miami Beach.

“These boleteros in Miami Dade have become like some political consultants,” Ulvert added. “You don’t want them working for you. But you don’t want them working against you. So some candidates figure you just have to pay them.”

Scott won his seat by a margin of 20,745 absentee ballots in 2010. His voter suppression initiatives, such as his unsuccessful attempt to restrict voter registration drives and early voting schedules, have been mostly blocked by judges due to their impact on minority communities.

Three months after a federal judge blocked much of Florida’s year-old voter suppression law as an unconstitutional infringement on speech and voting rights, the same judge agreed Tuesday to permanently remove the restrictions on voter registration drives, pending final confirmation that a federal appeals court has dismissed the case. In a settlement, the civil rights groups challenging the law and the state agreed not to appeal the case.

HB 1355, enacted by the state legislature’s Republican majority and signed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) — went into effect last July, putting major new restrictions on groups who work to register new voters. The law imposed harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, in his May order, put the restrictions on hold, finding “the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional even to the extent they do not violate the [National Voter Registration Act].”

Unfortunately, before the law was struck down, it had a clear effect: driving down voter registration numbers in Florida. The Florida Times-Union reported this week that Democratic voter registration in the state “all but [dried] up” in the wake of the law’s enactment.

Last July, a Florida voter suppression law — enacted by the state legislature’s Republican majority and signed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) — went into effect, putting major new restrictions on groups who work to register new voters. HB 1355 imposed harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines. Though the bill was put on hold in late May by a federal judge, a new report shows the damage was done: Democratic voter registration in Florida ground to a virtual standstill.

In blocking the new law, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote that HB 1355 would “impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional even to the extent they do not violate the [National Voter Registration Act].” He granted an injunction, he wrote, because the bill could cause “irreparable harm.” When a voter-participation group “loses an opportunity to register a voter,” he noted, “the opportunity is gone forever.”

That lost opportunity over 11 months had a significant effect. The Florida Times-Union reports that over the 13-months period beginning July 1 of the year before elections in 2004 and 2008, the number of registered Democrats in Florida increased by an average of 209,425 voters. Since July 1, 2011 — the HB 1355 went into effect — that number was just 11,365:

Groups said the new rules made it impossible to comply. As a result, many got out of the registration game until a federal judge ruled in their favor at the end of May, 11 months later.

“It has without a doubt hurt registration numbers,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Florida. “It really gummed up the works and made it harder for Floridians to get registered.”

Macnab notes that the rule may have disproportionately hurt Democratic registration as groups often target areas that lean Democratic — “college campuses, senior centers and low-income communities.”

Combined with the Scott administration’s failed attempts attempts to reduce the number of hours for early voting and to purge citizens from the voter rolls, a clear pattern emerges.

Even with court intervention to stop apparently illegal voter suppression efforts like HB 1355, reports like this expose the “irreparable harm” already done to American democracy.