A Letter to the Editor is a column sent in for publication in response to a column or article previously published. This is in response to recent breaking news surrounding the recently-passed resolution relating to Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.

Assemblymen Charles Levine and David Weprin are sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution under Article VI. They did not do their constitutional homework in rallying against the alleged illegality of Binghamton University Student Association’s (SA) urging the University to adopt a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions policy in its investment decisions.

Putting aside whether former-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 157 applies to the SA and whether the Order violates the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, it is clearly preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which entrusts exclusive control over foreign policy to the federal government to the exclusion of states. That principle was enshrined in Pennsylvania v. Nelson (1956), Crosby v. Foreign Trade Council (2000) and American Insurance Association v. Garamendi (2003). Gov. Cuomo’s Executive Order intended to establish a foreign policy of New York friendly to Israel contrary to the current federal policy, which has repeatedly rejected a federal anti-BDS law.

Under the Constitution, we speak with one voice on foreign policy and that voice is the voice of the United States, notwithstanding the unschooled views of Lavine and Weprin.

Ralph Nader is a political activist, attorney and a four-time presidential candidate.

Bruce Fein is a lawyer specializing in constitutional and international law.

John Richard and Albert Mokhiber are Binghamton University alumni who graduated in 1976 and 1980, respectively.