Yuval Levin on federalism at SPN Annual Meeting
Andrew Dunn of State Policy Network has a good summation of Yuval Levin’s keynote address at the State Policy Network Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
He makes a good point off of Levin’s remarks that “The nation’s political dysfunction may therefore be less a failure of constitutional design than a failure to practice constitutional government.”
Of course, James Madison understood that the goal of constitutional government was not to eliminate disagreement but to channel it effectively. That is why the Constitution divides power horizontally among the branches of government and vertically between the federal government and the states.
Obviously there is an essential civic habit embedded in that arrangement, too. Federalism requires Americans to accept that people in another state may govern themselves differently. That kind of restraint is increasingly difficult in a political culture that often wants so many political victories or issues nationalized. And even when Americans might prefer to keep an issue closer to home, our political culture so often pushes the debate toward Washington.
Still, if we can’t live under our Constitution, in my mind, broader reforms will do little to help. The central task, then, is to return the federal government to its enumerated powers and restore constitutional government.
On that point, I readily agree with Levin.
And it’s a great reminder that with a broken Congress, the states can do much more to check national power and help restore the constitutional balance by insisting that Washington remain within its enumerated powers.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat