"A strange brew of very odd Tea Party experiments" in state governments

[pampango]

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110317/OPINION16/110316021/Dana-Milbank-strange-brew-very-odd-Tea-Party-experiments?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Opinion|s

When Louis Brandeis called state legislatures "laboratories of democracy," he couldn't have imagined the curious formulas the tea party chemists would be mixing in 2011, including: a bill just passed by the Utah Legislature requiring the state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender; a Montana bill declaring global warming "beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana"; a plan in Georgia to abolish driver's licenses because licensing violates the "inalienable right" to drive; legislation in South Dakota that would require every adult to buy a gun; and the Kentucky Legislature's effort to create a "sanctuary state" for coal, safe from environmental laws.

In Washington, the whims of the tea party lawmakers have been tempered, by President Obama and Senate Democrats, but also by House Republican leaders who don't want the party to look crazy. Yet these checks often do not exist in state capitols. Though many of the proposals will never become law, the proliferation of exotic policies gives Americans a sense of what tea party rule might look like.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to strip public-sector unions of their power has gained national attention, as have various states' efforts to imitate Arizona's immigration crackdown. Arizona, meanwhile, moved on to an attempt to assert its authority to nullify federal law; the last time that was tried, we had the Civil War.

Less well known is what's going on in Montana. Legislators there have introduced several bills that would nullify federal law, including health care reform, the Endangered Species Act, gun laws and food-safety laws. Under one legislative proposal, FBI agents couldn't operate in the state without the permission of county sheriffs. Legislators are also looking into a proposed resolution calling on Congress to end membership in the United Nations.

[ejpoeta]

1. i think wisconsin, while what scott walker is doing is awful, is shadowing

other states like Michigan where it seems the 'small government' crowd has taken over and looks to use big government to seize towns and dissolve them if they want. sounds like small government to me doesn't it to you too. (sarcasm in case it's needed) i mean, here in ny there has been a guy going around forcing towns to put measures on the ballot to reduce the size of their councils etc. he had to take them to court to do it, but people got the chance to vote for this, and in many cases they did vote to reduce the size of their local government. but when it came to combining cities and towns people tend to vote NO. they like to keep their towns and cities etc. the idea that one person could appoint someone to summarily decide to dissolve whole towns and governments that have been voted on by the people is insane!! Is this what people voted for? is this what they wanted?

[drm604]

2. Reducing council size isn't really reducing the size of government, is it?

I suppose literally it is, but not in spirit. A bigger council dilutes power and gives greater representation, reducing it does the opposite.

How is that guy in NY doing this? How does he have standing to put something on the ballot of a municipality where he doesn't live?

[ejpoeta]

3. he's been going around for years trying to get this on the ballot. they used to laugh at him

but not anymore. it has been on the ballot in many towns over the past few years. i can't remember his name, but i think he is now going to try to do it in state government. i don't know how people think this is going to help their towns. like you i think less people making the decisions isn't such a good thing. how he accomplished it i believe is that he ended up taking one of the towns to court to get the measure on the ballot. In a way i think it was a good thing for the simple fact that people don't realize that is an option. i certainly didn't.

[drm604]

6. But what was his argument?

What was his standing to be able to take this to court? I don't understand why the courts would grant a non-resident the right to put something on the ballot.

[ejpoeta]

4. here's a link to a story from 2009

http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/06/voters-to-settle-local-government-downsizing-debate.html

[Tesha]

5. We were out protesting the Koch Brother's willing fools in New Hampshire yesterday.

AFP (Americans for Prosperity), one of the Koch Brother's front organizations,
was sponsoring a "nullification conference" yesterday at one of our local
privae colleges. Attended by all sorts of kooks, it was teaching them how the
key to their happiness was the Tenth Amendment and ignoring the Fedeal
Government on all sorts of topics.

Of course, aside from "Obamacare" (which all of them thought was an
abomination), each of them came with their own ideas of which of the
Federal powers should be nullified. For the mostly-young male crowd
(the Free State Project Libertarians), it was all sorts of personal freedoms
(which, based on the way they constantly got in my face and shouted at
me, seemed to include the freedom to be a complete asshole with no
social skills whatsoever). For the older folks, it was whatever Fox has
been trumpeting lately including the budget/deficit and religious/social
issues where they somehow, oddly, seem to think that the Government
should have much *MORE* power, especially over those nasty, nasty gays.

And guns and cigarettes were a hot button for all of them, even though
New Hampshire is already quite a paradise for both gun folks and
smokers.

The funny part was that these fools *PAID* to come here and be
indoctrinated in how to help the billionaire Koch brothers retain
even more of their wealth at the expense of nearly everyone attending
the conference. And most of them, when they engaged us in converstion,
either didn't know that AFP was sponsorng their conference (Hell, it was
right on the conference's website) or that the Koch brothers are "the
money" behind the AFP Astroturf.

Willing fools: the Right's bottomless resource.

Tesha

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[WhiteTara]

8. Doesn't Federal Law trump State Law?

Or is black now white and the world is a shade of gray?

[JHB]

10. In the real world, short answer is yes...

...but since this is the season for every fringe right-wing wish-list in Creation (on Fed vs State, it's from the "sovreign citizen" nutbars and grifters), reality has little to do with it.

[highplainsdem]

11. See my reply #9 on ALEC. Link to list of ALEC model legislation to "reassert state sovereignty":

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=ALEC_Model_Legislation

Restoring the Balance of Power

We have assembled ALEC Model Legislation and Resolutions that can be introduced at the state level to encourage a return to the proper balance of power between the state and federal governments. These pieces are divided by issue area, and we hope they will prove valuable to you in your efforts to reassert state sovereignty.



Federal Relations
Resolution Reaffirming Tenth Amendment Rights

This Resolution serves as a notice to the federal government of state resolve to maintain the state/federal balance of power as described in the U.S. Constitution, this Resolution can be tailored to specific states.


Resolution Requesting U.S. Congress to Enact Legislation that Requires Congress to Specify the Constitutional Authority for the Enactment of Laws

This Resolution petitions the U.S. Congress to enact legislation that prohibits federal agency rules or regulations from preempting or otherwise interfering with state or local powers without express statutory authority.



State Regulatory Responsibility Act

This Act clearly establishes the role of the state agency when confronted with attempted intrusive and unauthorized actions by the federal government representatives. The purpose of the Act is to ensure the division of governmental responsibilities between the federal government and the states under the principles of “federalism,” so those state agencies are free to implement their powers without unauthorized federal interference.

-snip-

That's just a small part of the list, which also includes their model bill for states to exercise eminent domain on federal lands.

[highplainsdem]

9. Walker's union-busting and the bills copying Arizona's immigration laws aren't from the Tea Party.

They're from the American Legislative Exchange Council, which essentially is a group bringing together conservative legislators and corporations who want changes in the law, with those corporations actually helping write model legislation that is taken back to individual states. ALEC is basically a giant corporate advocacy/lobbying group in the guise of an "educational" "charity" -- and its members include both corporations and thousands of conservative state legislators.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

Check the replies in that topic, not just the OP. Most people have no idea how influential ALEC is and how many of these bills are copying ALEC's model legislation.

The Arizona immigration law came out of an ALEC task force whose members include the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which profits from such bills.

The union-busting measures in Walker's budget copy ALEC's model legislation for "budget reform" -- which also includes privatization, which is being pushed too (power plants in Wisconsin, prisons in Ohio, etc.).

The bills designed to nullify federal health care reform come from ALEC.

Ditto various bills designed to roll back environmental regulations.

Milbank SHOULD be aware of just which bills come from ALEC and which are most likely isolated Tea Party craziness (the GA plan to abolish driver's licenses, for instance -- you know insurance companies won't support that and ALEC is nothing if not pro-business). But as far as I've been able to discover, Milbank has never written anything about ALEC.

The Tea Party is an astroturf front useful for political campaigns. But the key player in this legislative blitz we're seeing is ALEC.

The Koch brothers provide part of the funding for both. But ALEC brings together much more corporate influence on legislation. This isn't just about the Koch brothers.