Federalism, despite misconceptions to the contrary, does not refer to the supremacy of Federal institutions. Instead, the term currently refers to the belief that states' rights should outweigh federal powers. Therefore, "federalism" is the U.S. is largely synonymous with "states' rights," although it is often used incorrectly (with the opposite meaning), including recently by Pat Buchanan as he appeared on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. Granted, when the country was founded, the term referred to people who believed in a federation, that is, a central government of some sort. But even then, the role of the central government was to be limited.
The term "federalism" also has different meanings in different contexts and countries. Here, I refer to it in the context of the U.S., where it is most recently in the news due to the Terry Schiavo case. In an extraordinary move, the Republican congress and president ran rough-shod over states' rights by attempting to move the jurisdiction of the case from the Florida courts to Federal courts. This comes despite Republicans often touting states' rights when they don't like federal laws or don't want one states' laws to affect another state. They did a similar thing when the US Supreme Court stopped the Florida court from ruling on the 2000 presidential election. Likewise, Republicans are afraid of anti-gay-marriage states having to recognize the same-sex couples that were married by states where same-sex marriage is legal.
In short, if Republicans control the Federal gov't and can get a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, they are anti-federalist (i.e., they feel the Federal gov't should take precedence over states' rights). OTOH, if Republicans don't like Federal laws, they conveniently either overturn or rewrite them, or retreat to the position that states should make decisions independent of the Federal gov't. Beauty.
posted on Wed, 23 Mar 2005 at 20:13 | path: /words | perma link
