Obama's agenda faces governors' revolt
TAGS: Aaron BurrBarack ObamaBob McDonnellchris christieCivil WarDemocratsFloridaHaley BarbourindianaJohn CalhounMinnesotamississippiMitch Danielsnew jerseyNew Mexiconikki haleyNoemie EmeryobamacareRepublicansscott walkersecessionSouth Carolinastates' rightssusana martinezTim Pawlentytim scottWhite Housewisconsin
Comments (0) Share Print By: Noemie Emery 02/22/11 8:05 PM
Examiner Columnist
.Picture a hand on the wheel of the great ship of state, pushing it hard in a certain direction, say, to the left. It belongs to the president. Picture 29 smaller ones on the other side of the wheel, trying as hard as they can to wrench it back in the other direction. They belong to Govs. Chris Christie, R-N.J., Mitch Daniels, R-Ind., Scott Walker, R-Wis., and 26 other Republican governors, 12 of them elected in the 2009 and 2010 cycles.
Two years and four months ago, President Obama was elected to enact his agenda; and four months ago, the Republicans were put in to dismantle it.

In the interim, the public had a big change of mind, which created the impasse. Each side has a mandate, and is hell-bent upon it, creating a situation unique in our history.

For the first time since the Civil War ended, the federal government and a large number of the states and their governors are at open and few-holds-barred war.

States and their governors defying the White House, is, of course, nothing new. In the 19th century, the United States survived three different secessionist movements, the first two involving Aaron Burr (in 1804 and 1807), and the Southern secession 60 years later, that gave us a long, bloody war.

In the 1950s and '60s, some Southern governors stood "in the door of the schoolhouse," but those acts of defiance were regional, racist, and doomed. None of these instances serves as a guide to this new breed of battlers.

Despite thinking in terms of nullification and interposition (made famous by John C. Calhoun in an earlier fracas), this new states' rights movement has no plans whatever for leaving the Union.

Unlike prior movements, it is based on neither region nor race: It runs from Alaska through the upper Midwest, down to the two southernmost bastions of Texas and Florida; it is strong in the red states, and in purple and blue ones: It is home to the male and the female, the pale and the brown, the WASP and the ethnic, the urban and rural, the fat and the lean: to Gov. Susana Martinez, R-N.M., and to Gov. Bob McDonnell, R-Va.; to New Jersey's Christie, and to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; to Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., and to Gov. Haley Barbour, R-Miss.; to good old boys and to children of darker-hued immigrants.

If its composition is different, so is its operational strategy. Instead of raising armies, it is raising objections. It fires off lawsuits, not guns.

Twenty-six states have filed 24 law suits, aimed at declaring the health care reform act as unconstitutional, which one court in Florida has already done. Scarcely a day goes by without one governor or another tossing sand in the gears of Obama's agenda.

South Carolina's Haley is in Obama's face constantly. Gov. Sean Parnell, R-Alaska, says he won't start enforcing Obamacare, as the court in Florida has labeled it unconstitutional.

Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., says "no, thank you," to Obama's plans for light rail. And Wisconsin's Walker has started a war with Obama, confronting his unionized friends.

The GOP gains in the House were as stunning as those in the state houses, but the House is one-half of one branch of the federal government, and can only stop things, not start.

This is why the lead in confronting Obama has passed to the governors, who, on the day they take office, have the power they need to make policy. This is why the war has moved to, and outside of, the state capitols.

"States' rights" may be saving the party of Lincoln. And what could be stranger than that?

Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and author of "Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families."



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