EKA/ARC Recruiting Measures Overturned

Here is the Chronicle’s longer story. It appeared on Page B1 and offers a nice distillation of the issues. One one hand:

The Arcata and Eureka laws represented a new tactic that experts said appeared to have been the first of its kind in America: a counter-recruitment law passed not by a handful of elected activists, but by a plurality of voters.

But alas:

Under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal laws trump state laws on issues the federal government is responsible for, like foreign affairs and national defense.

The story raises an interesting question: Might this perfunctory outcome have been avoided if Measures F and J addressed recruitment of children under the age of 17 rather than 18? Arcata’s pro-bono lawyer seems to think so.