We used to call this federalism.
I really do respect the research done by the Brookings Institution. Overall, I find their methodologies appropriate and their conclusions sound. But every once in a while, I see an “essay” that makes me wonder what the authors have been smoking. The linked article on “constitutional localism” falls into that category.
Specifically, we call for a new civic ethos or governing framework which we call Constitutional Localism, that will shift the greatest number of public decisions possible to the community level—albeit within a clear constitutional framework to protect the individual freedoms and rights won over the past 250 years.
We see the pursuit by Americans of varied lifestyles and cultural preferences as a healthy sign of American freedom and choice, not a destructive force. We need to rebuild public confidence in American democracy, not by insisting on a singular national answer to each problem, but by celebrating the ability of America’s varied communities to find solutions that work best for them. As we see it, the challenge confronting the nation is to find a way to permit this range of opinion and action to flourish while restoring a shared faith in the common democratic values and processes that define American self-government.
Where to start?
First of all–and most obvious–the framework they suggest is the legal framework we have–a significant, albeit diminishing, degree of state autonomy, constrained by the requirement that local laws not violate the Bill of Rights.
The fact that “localism” often doesn’t look very local is a function of 21st Century reality: the inter-related needs of national (and increasingly global) commerce; the ease with which citizens and criminals can cross state lines, the national nature of many threats we face–from medical epidemics to terrorist attacks to acid rain. Etc.
The challenge is to determine what sorts of rules are properly the purview of local lawmakers, and which need to be national in scope. Americans have engaged in arguments about this since the Articles of Confederation. In my state, Indiana, municipalities face the same issue–a longstanding debate about the state legislature’s refusal to allow meaningful home rule by cities and towns.
People of good will can–and will–argue about what political scientists call “devolution,” and what partisans dub “state’s rights.” Which rules should be left to the locals, and which must be made nationally or even globally? To what extent should citizens think of themselves as part of the broad American fabric, and to what extent members of various sub-constituencies? How much consistency is needed to create unum from our pluribus, and how much is too much?
There is a modern twist to this age-old debate, and it is disquieting.
I have blogged previously about The Big Sort and the growing urban/rural divide. Americans appear to be “sorting” ourselves into like-minded communities, geographical “bubbles” where we can live with people who think and act like us. It is part of the polarization that has kept government from working toward that elusive something called “the common good.” Do we really want to encourage cities to create various iterations of “people’s republics” while more rural areas establish enclaves ruled by “Christian Talibans”?
At what point does autonomy become separatism? Inquiring minds want to know…
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