Pubdate: Sun, 01 Feb 2004
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2004 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Contact:  http://www.sunspot.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Michael Hill
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/ashcroft.htm (Ashcroft, John)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/bush.htm (Bush, George)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

PARTIES SHIFTING ON RIGHTS OF STATES

Politics: In A Reversal, Republicans Increasingly Seek To Bolster The
Federal Government While Democrats Side With The Wishes Of
States.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people. - 10th amendment to the
Constitution

The last of the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights is the
foundation of a political cry long associated with conservatives.

"States' rights" has been evoked to oppose the growth in the authority
of the federal government for several generations of American politics.

The cry was heard in opposition to the Civil Rights movement that
called for federal court orders and legislation to force states to
desegregate schools, buses and, eventually all public accommodations.
The argument - based on the 10th amendment - was that because the
Constitution didn't say anything about the federal government running
schools or businesses, then those are the concern only of the states.

Now consider the fact that President Bush, who declares himself a
conservative, is running for re-election promoting his "No Child Left
Behind" act though it has the federal government telling the states
all sorts of things about running their schools.

As the country goes into a presidential campaign, there are
indications the states' rights banner may have switched to liberal
hands on this and other issues from pot smoking to an person's right
to die.

"No liberal can do it explicitly in those words without creating a
backlash in certain portions of the Democratic Party," says William
Galston, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at
the University of Maryland, College Park  "There are parts of the party that
will resist the idea of states' rights in those terms as long as they live.

"But I think if the issue is framed differently then a Democrat should
and will pick up the banner of states as the laboratory of democracy.
That was a classic progressive era slogan that is just as good now as
it was 100 years ago," he says.

Consider that the state of California decided to allow the medical use
of marijuana but the Bush Justice Department under Attorney General
John Ashcroft made a federal case out of it - prosecuting a man for
growing marijuana though his acts were legal under the state law.

Ashcroft intervened in Oregon when that state decided to allow
physicians to assist terminally ill patients who wanted to commit suicide.

Much of the legal drive behind regulating Wall Street has come from a
state attorney general, Elliot Spitzer of New York, not the federal
regulatory bodies.

California has long been ahead of the federal Environmental Protection
Administration in restricting pollution, running afoul of the federal
government in the Reagan administration. It provoked the ire of the
current administration by trying to carry out tough standards over the
small engines used in lawnmowers. The state, with the help of its new
Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, eventually won that fight.

"At least since the 1980s, there has been a movement on the part of
liberals - beginning with issues of the environment - in favor of
states' rights and state autonomy," says Matthew Crenson, a professor
of political science at the Johns Hopkins University

Jack Fruchtman Jr., a political scientist at Towson University, says this
has also been evident in the courts as Republican appointments changed the
federal judiciary.

"As the federal courts got more conservative, liberals began looking
to state courts to achieve their ends," Fruchtman says.

Crenson notes that the Reagan administration explicitly stepped on
states' rights when it proposed not allowing states to adopt tougher
pollution standards than those required by the federal government. It
also used the prospect of withholding federal highway dollars to force
states to rescind bans on double tractor-trailers. This trend
continues with the current administration.

"In education, with No Child Left Behind, what they have done is
create the most centralized education program since the Johnson
administration," Crenson says.

Galston, who was a top domestic policy adviser in the Clinton
administration, says the No Child Left Behind act will probably not be
an issue in this year's campaign as it is the result of 15 years of
bipartisan work.

"It is true that [it] enhances the reach of federal authority over
public education, but on the other hand, many people in both parties
came to believe that was the only way to break through the stagnation
and induce states and localities to pay attention to a percent of the
student population that was persistently neglected," he says.

It is on an issue such as gay marriage that you hear Democratic
presidential hopefuls defending the rights of states - whether it is
the civil unions that were signed into law by then-Vermont Gov. Howard
Dean or the court ruling in Massachusetts that allows gay marriage on
the basis of equal rights. The call for federal intervention in these
state matters comes from conservatives calling for a constitutional
amendment.

As a candidate for the Democratic nomination, Dean raised states'
rights in the gun control debate, saying that a mainly rural state
such as Vermont should have the right to different gun laws than a
more urban state.

Though this was anathema to many Democrats who have long backed
federal gun legislation, it also defies the position of gun control
opponents that the Second Amendment gives federal protection to gun
owners.

Galston, who notes that he backed federal gun control during his time
in Washington, says the states' rights stance may provide a way out
for Democrats on guns. "It could be a way of out-flanking an issue
that has been politically catastrophic for Democrats."

If the Democrats do become the states' rights party - in deed, if not
in word - and the Republicans stand in favor of centralized control,
it would return the parties to their political roots.

The Democrats trace their heritage back to Thomas Jefferson, the
founding father whose fear of central control was a cornerstone of his
political thinking. The Republicans trace themselves to Abraham
Lincoln, whose greatness was built on a war fought on the premise that
the United States had primacy over the individual states.

"Throughout the 19th century, Republicans were in favor of big
government because they were in favor of protectionism," Crenson says.
"That meant they favored collecting a lot of protectionist tariffs."
All that money collected by the federal government had to be spent on
something, so it inevitably led to a bigger central
administration.

Throughout that era, Crenson says, the progressives looked to the
states for legislation on things such as pensions and labor rights and
civil rights. "On the state level, there were a whole range of reforms
not passed on the federal level."

Eventually, Crenson says, the same business interests that favored
tariffs came to favor lower taxes and less regulation, leading them -
and the Republicans - away from a big government stance. What clinched
it was Roosevelt's New Deal.

"When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, the state governments
were incapable of dealing with the massive disruptions caused by the
Depression," says Galston. "From the late 1930s, for two generations
the prevailing political sentiment in the country was that the federal
government ought to step in to do what the states couldn't or wouldn't
do, first on economic policy, then on racial and a number of other
issues."

The conservative opposition regained power in the 1980s. But, Crenson
says, their return of power to the states did not lead to the expected
results.

"They were operating on the assumption in American politics that is
embodied in the phrase 'race to the bottom,'" he says. It was thought
that if states were given power over regulations, they would loosen
them - especially in the environmental areas - to attract business.

"But it didn't happen that way," Crenson says. States found their
citizens - and their businesses - wanted a clean environment and often
toughened those regulations. He says studies show the same thing
happened with welfare expenditures when the federal government reduced
its support.

"When the federal government stepped back, there was no race to the
bottom," Crenson says, noting that the real growth in government since
the Reagan era has been on the state level.

Without power in Washington, that's where Democrats have looked to
push their agenda. Most likely, this is a matter of expediency, not
ideology.

"Where you stand on this issue depends on where you sit," Galston
says.

Mark Graber, professor of government and politics at the University of
Maryland, College Park agrees. "For most of American history, states' rights
has been the claim of people who believe that they are more likely to win on
the state level than the federal level," he says.

"Take two contemporary examples. With gay marriage, liberals do not
have a chance to win on the national level, but on the state level,
they get wins in Vermont and Massachusetts and tell the national
government to stay out," he says.

"With Roe vs. Wade, conservatives talk about anti-abortion legislation
on the state level because they don't have a chance on the national
level."

Graber, who also teaches at Maryland's School of Law, says you can
probably find some academics and a few politicians from both parties
who have a real commitment to states' rights.

"But for the most part, all prefer national solutions when they can
win nationally."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin