What is the right of a state to reject a federal law it considers unconstitutional?

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The right to reject a federal law believed unconstitutional is the Doctrine of Nullification. This idea holds that a state can declare a federal law invalid within its borders and refuse to enforce it, arguing that the state’s authority to determine constitutional limits on federal power supersedes the federal law in that state. It surfaced in the early 1830s during the South Carolina tariff crisis, illustrating the clash between state sovereignty and federal supremacy and why the federal government rejected the notion as unconstitutional and unworkable within the constitutional system.

While broader states’ rights arguments advocate for preserving state powers, they don’t specify the act of voiding federal laws. Interposition, a related but different claim, suggests a state may intervene to protect its citizens against federal action, but isn’t the formal mechanism for declaring a federal law invalid. Sovereign Immunity, on the other hand, deals with a government’s immunity from being sued, not with nullifying federal statutes.