A few weeks ago, we saw Louisiana’s Governor, Bobby Jindal, sign a fake law. The law presumably made it illegal for the federal government to force citizens of the state to carry health insurance, but added this provision:

C. No provision in this Section shall be interpreted or held to supercede any provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, P.L. 111-148 or any other federal law.

Now that you’ve seen the fake law, time for us to all take a look at the fake ballot initiative. Im Missouri, citizens today will vote on (and probably pass) a measure, Prop C, which would similarly nullify the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act. Only, it doesn’t:

Missouri voters go to the polls Tuesday for the first-in-the-nation referendum on President Obama’s health care plan. It is likely to give Republicans a chance to brag about the unpopularity of Obamacare, but the vote will be largely symbolic. Courts will eventually decide whether Missouri and other states can legally trump federal law and exempt citizens from the mandate to buy insurance. But sending a signal to Washington will be victory enough for the Republicans and Tea Party activists pushing Proposition C.

These kinds of message pieces of legislation and wedge ballot measures do wonders for electoral politics. The unpopularity of the mandate will certainly spring many similar measures like what we’ll see pass in Missouri today. The fact that none of them will change the law even a whit is immaterial. Ballot measures like this channel anger and will reverberate on the actual politicians running in the same elections, a prolific weapon in the hands of conservatives – particularly in November, when more of these types of measures will appear on the ballot in other states. Constitutionality and the supremacy clause be damned.

Meanwhile, what we do know about the Affordable Care Act right now is that it will save $8 billion for Medicare in the first year and $418 billion by 2019, and extend its solvency by 12 years, out to 2029. Surely there will be future ballot measures playing to those efficiencies as “cuts.”