Rudy Giuliani and federalism

Ron Brownstein makes the point that Giuliani's strong support of a federalist approach to many policy questions allows Giuiliani to maintain an appeal to Republican conservatives who disagree with his stand on social issues.

Social issues such as gay rights and gun control divide America so sharply largely because no one has found a single solution for them equally acceptable to both churchgoing conservatives and secular liberals. The first step toward resolving these disputes may be to recognize that the search for a single solution has itself become part of the problem.

More than any other 2008 presidential hopeful, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has grasped that insight. Giuliani is mostly running for the GOP presidential nomination as a warrior against Islamic terrorism. But his most innovative domestic idea casts him as a peacemaker on the social issues that have divided the nation since the 1960s.

Giuliani argues that the best way to reduce tension about social issues is to allow states, rather than the federal government, to take the lead in responding to them. That would allow socially conservative and liberal states to each set rules that reflect the prevailing values inside their borders. Rather than perpetual combat in Washington, he insists, the nation could reach a new equilibrium as different states gravitated to different solutions.

In an interview last week, Giuliani said the key to resolving cultural arguments "where our society on a national level ends up being very divided" is to apply the "principle of federalism." Questions on topics such as gun control, gay rights or aspects of abortion, he continued, "are issues that I think the founding fathers would say should be consigned to state and local governments, experimenting, deciding, having different views, and the federal government having a more limited role."

Fred Thompson is also a vocal supporter of a federalist approach to policy questions. I would be thrilled if we could go back to the days when many of these issues were settled on a local basis. Federalism is one of the powerful mainstays of our constitutional system and yet we've gotten far away from our Founders' belief that as many policy decisions as possible should be made by the people closest to the issue. The more we expand the sphere to where the federal government is making policy on social and local issues the more we invite problems. Our nation's history has been one of increasing power going to the federal government and, at some point, I believe that the scales just got tipped too far away from state and local powers. When I am helping my Advanced Placement history students review for the exam, we review the growth of federal power and they start to see that almost every domestic measure from the beginning of the Progressive era in the early 20th century is an example of the growth of the central government's power. We start to see hints of what is happening from the very beginning with Alexander Hamilton through Henry Clay to Abraham Lincoln, but the acceleration is in full gear by the 20th century. It was at that point where reformers gave up on local governments to solve society's ills and started to focus on national responses. And while many of those reforms were all to the good and we wouldn't like to return to the days before women's rights, some business regulation, and civil rights, we just seem to have gone too far and it's time to swing back. And if Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson is in favor of returning some power back to local governments where the people may hold the most sway and influence, I'm all in favor of such a swing of the pendulum. It's about time.