DU Poll - Surprised? 7 States That Ban Atheists From Holding Public Office

[cthulu2016]

22. Not standing, merely on the books

They have been knocked over (using the standing metaphor), but the text can linger on.

Until after the Civil War the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states.

Swathes of state laws were invalidated by a series of court decisions over about a century. But the Supreme Court cannot amend state laws by, for instance, removing language from the state code.

Only the state legislature could do that and there may not even be the votes there to remove some of these bogus laws from the books, even today.

But since they are invalidated by the US Constitution that cannot be enforced. No enforcement, no cause of action, no judicial review.

Some southern states only got around to removing segregation laws decades after the were invalidated by Federal law and/or federal court rulings. But though "on the books" they were invalid for reasons outside the books, and not enforcable.