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Posted March 27, 2000
Not So IrrelevantBy John Martin
Every once in a while, at the obligatory conference panel on “The Profound Impact of the New Federalism” (the one you skipped to go back to your room to take a nap), some learned person will announce, with a bit of a sneer, that the federal government is on the road to irrelevance. More and more, the argument goes, the really important decisions are made in state capitols, city halls and county commission chambers. Before long, the federal role will be limited to defending the country from foreign invaders and producing the occasional presidential impeachment pageant.
Well, not so fast. Let’s take a look at some of the news from just one recent day in the history of our federal republic:
That was just one day. Another day in the same week saw the Clinton administration and local governments joining together to put the screws to the gunmakers; the U.S. Agriculture Department proclaiming south Florida a disaster area because of citrus canker; Congress moving to send nuclear waste to Nevada whether Nevada wants it or not; and the Internet tax commission tying itself in more knots. Open today’s paper, and you’ll see much of the same.
The point is, it would be a mistake to make too much of those road-to-irrelevance pronouncements. Certainly, the intergovernmental relationship is always evolving, and there have been some important initiatives — in welfare reform and environmental regulation, for instance — to move some responsibility out from the banks of the Potomac. But Washington is not about to wither away. It will always have a profound impact on lower levels of government, right down to the wide-place-in-the-road level. So the next time the subject comes up at a conference, take advantage of the opportunity. Go back to your room and take a nap.
John Martin is editor of Governing.com.
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Reader Response:
IT SHOULD BE IRRELEVANT
John Martin argues that pronouncements that the federal government is becoming irrelevant are wrong and cites a number of decisions which came out of Washington in just one day to support that view. I think Mr. Martin is actually misstating the case of those like me who argue for decentralization.
The argument which advocates of New Federalism (such as myself) make is not that the federal government is — at this moment — irrelevant, but that it could be and should be irrelevant.
Mr. Martin’s list of things showing why the federal government is not irrelevant also makes the point that it should have kept its nose out of each of these matters. Let’s look at his list:
1. ”The Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, the body chartered by Congress to tell it just how and to what degree it should interfere in state and local taxation policy, was busy tying itself in knots.” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 33 that “The individual states would, under the proposed Constitution, retain an independent and uncontrollable authority to raise revenue to any extent of which they may stand in need, by every kind of taxation, except duties on imports and exports.” Obviously the federal government has no business interfering in state and local taxation policy.
2. ”The U.S. Supreme Court was telling Montgomery County, Maryland, in a decision likely to ripple through other jurisdictions, that it couldn’t make school enrollment decisions based on race.” The county for decades had had federal court-ordered busing, in which the federal courts ordered the county to decide who went to what school based upon race. Now the court reversed itself. Obviously the court should not have been involved to begin with.
3. ”A Los Angeles city council committee was asking the U.S. Justice Department to take over coordination of the Rampart police corruption investigation, which had degenerated into a snarling political dogfight between the police chief and the district attorney.” No need for federal involvement here. The state police are perfectly positioned to investigate local corruption and are the proper constitutional authority.
4. ”The Clinton administration was announcing that it would be phasing out the use of the gasoline additive MTBE, a foul-smelling carcinogen that has been showing up in local water supplies. (This was the same federal government that for years had been promoting use of MTBE to help clean the air.)” Once again it was federal involvement which created the problem to begin with — it was states who brought the problem into the open and began trying to get rid of MTBE, risking the ire of the feds. Once again, things would have been much better if the feds had never been involved.
5. ”A federal court was ruling that District of Columbia residents have no right to voting representation in Congress, despite the fact that they do have the right to pay federal taxes, die in our wars and otherwise participate fully in our democracy.” Not that this decision affects anyone outside of D.C., but it seems to me that if the feds would allow real home rule for the District (and indeed should allow home rule for the states as well) the issue of representation would disappear. If indeed the federal role was simply “defending the country from foreign invaders,” I don’t think anyone would care a whole lot if they voted in Congressional elections or not.
Each of these cases simply proves that while the federal government is involved in many things it ought not to be involved in.
I do think that “the really important decisions are made in state capitols, city halls and county commission chambers.” Often however, the decisions made in the state capitols or city halls are simply to do what the federal government tells them. Take education. Any state at any time could refuse to accept federal money (which represents a mere 6 percent of a typical state’s education budget) and do anything it wanted. The federal Department of Education is not irrelevant because in exchange for a fairly small amount of aid the states decide to jump through whatever hoops the people in Washington tell it to. In fact, I am sure that the associated costs of complying with federal regulations actually end up costing a state more than it receives in federal aid. So is the DOE irrelevant? No, but it could be, and all of the important education decisions are made on the local level.
I think that comments such as Mr. Martin’s are counterproductive because they tend to reinforce the mistaken view of local leaders that “the federal government is so big and powerful, that when they tell us to jump, the only thing left is to negotiate how high.”
Paul Clark
Recently in View:
Bean Counters and People Power: building a better bureaucrat (posted March 23, 2000)
Hacked Off: dealing with Internet invaders (posted March 20, 2000)
Blame for a Fiasco: privatization and accountability (posted March 13, 2000)
Attack of the Barnes-o-Meter: tracking enemies with technology (posted March 9, 2000)
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