Fascinating article in today's New York Times about Obama's openness to '"progressive federalism."' That is, where 'governors and activist state attorneys general...try to lead the way on environmental initiatives, consumer protection and other issues.' The article quotes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis describing in 1932 how each state can '"serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."'
Upon reading that quote, I immediately thought of China's Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which Deng Xiaoping established in the early 80s to experiment with market capitalism without committing the entire country to wide-ranging reforms with uncertain consequences.
There are, of course, important differences. Deng's de facto dictator status and the Chinese central government's total power enabled him to impose the SEZs wherever he deemed best, so for China the process was very much an experiment directed from the top. Once it proved successful, Deng expanded the reforms to include the entire country (though important differences still exist between the SEZs and the rest of the PRC).
Progressive federalism, on the other hand, is driven by democratically elected state governments impatient with the federal government's slow pace or badly applied regulations. It's not clear whether some of these initiatives, if successful, will be taken up by Washington and applied on a national level, though the fact that it will have taken a state to try them in the first place leads me to believe that Congressional passage would be difficult at best. Plus, if the state is large enough or if enough states adopt the same reform, it may become more profitable for affected companies to treat it as though it were a federal law rather than maintaining separate production lines for different states. I anticipate Republican complaints about large blue states like California setting the regulatory pace for the entire country, as it already seems to be doing.
1 hour ago
You don't quite mention the reasons that something might be faster to pass in a state than nationally; but I think it's worth it to say that not only may the national law machine be slower to respond to public wants than the state one, but state-level laws can address more local demographics. For example, Massachusetts decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana; not only might such a law never make it to the top of Congress's to-do list, but the nation at large might be opposed to having such a law. Thus, local laws allow the regionally-varying political leanings of Americans to be reflected in their regional governments.
ReplyDeleteRight, I should have mentioned that further. I inserted the "some" in "It's not clear whether some of these initiatives" as an acknowledgement that not every state law or regulation is applicable on the national level, but I keep forgetting people can't read my mind. ;)
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would argue that if enough big states decriminalize marijuana, as in fully decriminalize sale and possession, the rest will eventually follow of their own accord as they watch their own citizens enrich other states via sales and marijuana taxes.
However, the point is moot because this would first require a repeal of the current federal law criminalizing marijuana, which is very unlikely to happen. It's either that or a Supreme Court decision declaring the current federal prohibition on marijuana unconstitutional, I'm thinking in violation of the 10th Amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_amendment).
Ah crap no edit comment button, not even for the blog author? I must suffer my repeated words in shame :(
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