Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2014
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2014 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Jacob Sullum
Page: 7B

GOP'S FEDERALISM QUEST DIES WITH ONLINE POKER, POT

Mike Lee calls for "a new conservative reform agenda" based on "three 
basic principles," one of which is federalism. "The biggest reason 
the federal government makes too many mistakes is that it makes too 
many decisions," the Republican senator from Utah explained in a 
speech at the Heritage Foundation last year. "Most of these are 
decisions the federal government doesn't have to make - and therefore 
shouldn't."

So why on earth is Lee cosponsoring a bill introduced last month that 
would ban online gambling throughout the country, instead of letting 
each state decide whether to allow Internet-assisted poker? The 
contradiction illustrates one reason the GOP seems destined for 
permanent minority status: Too many of its members are unprincipled 
killjoys who do not understand that federalism requires tolerance of diversity.

The bill Lee supports, which would ban "any bet or wager" placed via 
the Internet, was instigated by casino magnate and Republican 
mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands 
Corp., who would prefer not to worry about online competition. The 
motive for the bill thus violates another of Lee's three basic 
principles: opposition to "dispensing political privileges to prop 
the well-connected up."

But the blatant disregard for federalism is especially striking 
because the bill's backers brazenly claim it is necessary to protect 
state autonomy. They have even enlisted Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an 
avowed fan of the 10th Amendment, to testify that a national ban on 
Internet gambling, which would override the policy preferences of 
states such as Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey, is what the Framers 
would have wanted. The National Conference of State Legislatures sees 
things differently.

Poker is not the only subject that turns Republicans into advocates 
of a meddling, overweening federal government. Pot also brings out 
their inner centralizers.

Republican legislators have repeatedly criticized the Obama 
administration's response to marijuana legalization in Colorado and 
Washington, arguing that the president is constitutionally bound to 
crush these experiments. "Federal law takes precedence" over state 
law, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Attorney General Eric Holder 
during a congressional hearing last week. "The state of Colorado is 
undermining ... federal law, correct? Why do you fail to enforce the 
laws of the land?"

Republicans such as Smith not only accept the fanciful notion - which 
is no less absurd for having been endorsed by the Supreme Court - 
that interstate commerce, which Congress is authorized to regulate, 
includes marijuana that never crosses state lines, down to a bag of 
buds in a cancer patient's drawer. They also argue, as Smith does, 
that "state law conflicts with federal law" if it does not punish 
everything that Congress decides to treat as a crime.

This insistence that only one policy - prohibition - can be allowed 
with respect to pot and poker is not just unprincipled, but also 
politically perilous. Polls indicate that most Americans think 
marijuana and online poker should be legal, and that view is 
especially common among young voters.

According to a ReasonRupe public opinion survey conducted in 
December, 65 percent of Americans think the government should let 
people play online poker. That includes 70 percent of respondents 
younger than 45 and 69 percent of respondents younger than 55.

In a Gallup poll last fall, overall support for legalizing marijuana 
was 58 percent, including 67 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 62 
percent of 30- to 49-year-olds. A CNN poll conducted in January put 
overall support for legalization at 55 percent and found a similar 
breakdown by age: Two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds said pot should 
be legal, and nearly as many 34- to 49-year-olds agreed.

How do Republicans respond to these tolerant majorities? They do not 
merely express their distaste for pot smoking and online poker 
playing, or argue that both pastimes should be illegal at the state 
level. They say the two activities should be banned at the national 
level, even though that position contradicts their professed 
commitment to federalism.

That is a "conservative reform agenda" of sorts, I suppose. But it is 
not at all "new," and it aims to reform us rather than the government.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom