Bids to Push States’ Rights Falter in Face of Stimulus

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

BOISE, Idaho — Standing up for states’ rights has not been easy this spring, even as many state lawmakers wince at the extended reach of the federal government. With the recession sparing few corners of the country, the $787 billion federal stimulus package has weakened the resolve of states’ rights activists in legislatures across the country“They lay the bait out, and we come take it,” said Monty Pearce, a Republican state senator who sponsored a sovereignty resolution that passed the Idaho Legislature. “Then we whine that we’ve taken it.”

Sure enough. When legislatures convened this year, lawmakers in more than 30 states set out to send Washington a blunt message: back off. Frustrated by federal policies like the bank bailout and rules allowing wolves to prowl the West, they drafted so-called sovereignty resolutions, aggressive interpretations of states’ rights outlined in the Tenth Amendment.

Acting independently (though sometimes cribbing a whereas or two from the Web), the lawmakers shared the same broad goal: to symbolically push back against Congress and the White House in a power struggle as old as the Republic.

“Cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers,” reads the resolution passed here in Idaho, referring to powers described in the Tenth Amendment.

Now, despite a few loud exceptions, including the recent protests of Gov. Rick Perry, Republican of Texas, and the Florida Legislature’s rejection of $444 million in stimulus money that would have required changing state rules for unemployment aid, the objections have proved muted as financially struggling states embrace federal help.

As many legislatures come to the end of their annual sessions, only four states have passed sovereignty measures through their full legislatures. The states that have — Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota — were successful in large part because of the strength of determined conservatives, who have long railed against an activist federal government.

“The stimulus money created a problem for us with the sovereignty thing,” said JoAn Wood, a Republican who is chairwoman of the House Transportation and Defense Committee in Idaho, which has overseen some legislative action on the stimulus money. “We’d like to stand on principle.”

Oklahoma had passed a sovereignty resolution that was later vetoed by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat. Mr. Henry said in a written statement that he had objected to the resolution’s suggestion that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars and “that past and present U.S. leaders had violated the U.S. Constitution and committed crimes against the states.” The Legislature is expected to pass a new, less-strident measure that would not require the governor’s signature.

Despite the poor results, supporters insist that the paper protests signal that a movement is under way.

“Even though the bill didn’t pass, the message got out there,” said Matt Shea, a first-term Republican state representative from outside Spokane, Wash., who drafted a sovereignty resolution that never got a hearing in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Mr. Shea’s resolution was among the first filed in any state this year. After the measure was promoted on conservative Web sites, he said, “several hundred people,” including some from outside the state, contacted lawmakers to urge its passage. Parts of his resolution, cut and pasted, provided the framework for one that passed in Idaho, lawmakers here said.

Mr. Shea said legislative leaders in his state had rejected the resolution in part because “they did need the stimulus money” and approving the measure could have appeared contradictory.

“It doesn’t mean that the people aren’t behind it,” he added.

The sovereignty push has been fueled by Republican lawmakers and governors who say the Democratically controlled Congress and President Obama have attached too many strings to the stimulus package. Yet many supporters of sovereignty measures insist that party politics and the current economic climate are irrelevant. Some cite the No Child Left Behind education policy and the U.S.A. Patriot Act under President George W. Bush as flagrant acts of federal overreaching.

“This is about Washington, D.C., politicians in general,” said Randy Brogdon, a Republican state senator from outside Tulsa, Okla., who sponsored a sovereignty resolution this spring and is running for governor in 2010. Mr. Brogdon said he was motivated by longstanding issues like income tax rates and federal plans to require new restrictions on state driver’s licenses, though he said he was particularly vexed by the “feeding frenzy” he said the stimulus had created.

Michael Boldin, who runs a Web site called the Tenth Amendment Center, which tracks the resolutions, said the idea of state sovereignty, in its purist form, transcends partisanship. To some, he said, California’s aggressive environmental policies or its laws allowing medical marijuana might make it seem “the original sovereignty state.”

No sovereignty resolution has been proposed this year in California, and none has passed in any state dominated by Democrats. In some conservative states where the resolutions have had more support, some Republicans have been accused of exploiting the sovereignty issue to position themselves against moderates in the party.

In Texas, Mr. Perry, speaking at an anti-tax rally, seemed to endorse seceding from the union, though he later clarified that he had no such interest. Mr. Perry, who faces a re-election challenge from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a more moderate Republican, has expressed support for a sovereignty resolution in Texas.

Here in Idaho, State Senator Elliot Werk, the assistant minority leader, said Republicans control the Legislature so overwhelmingly that their biggest political concern is primary challengers, not Democrats. Mr. Werk noted gun-rights bills that had passed, and a resolution that took a conservative stance on immigration. The stimulus package, he said, is another opportunity to express frustration, even as plenty of Republicans have voted to take the money.

Contradictions have been common here of late. Even Gov. C. L. Otter, a Republican known for vocal opposition to government expansion and strong support for states’ rights, has agreed to accept the stimulus money. (Mr. Otter has also angered many conservative Republicans by pressing to raise the gas tax.)

Aides to the governor say he believed he had no choice but to take the money, because money marked for Idaho would simply be steered toward other states.

Jon Hanian, a spokesman for the governor, said the concern was made vivid to Mr. Otter at a governors’ meeting in Washington this year. “Schwarzenegger told him, ‘Any money you don’t want, California will take,’ ” Mr. Hanian said, referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a California Republican.

Regardless of the complications of the moment, the sovereignty movement will continue, said Dick Harwood, an Idaho Republican who sponsored the resolution in the House.

“We’re going to have to come back next year,” he said.