Whose Job Is It? The Feds or the State?

Terry H. Schwadron

Once again, the juxtapositions of events show that he (or she) who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

Within a day of one another, the territory of Puerto Rico voted 97% for seeking statehood, most likely futile effort, while the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia filed suit against President Trump, challenging whether he is violating the Constitution by breaking the “emoluments” clause that bars federal office holders from accepting money from foreign governments through his businesses.

The connective tissue here is the power of the states and local communities versus that of the federal government.

It has become gospel for the Trump administration to push most social issues on the federal agenda to states and local communities. From the operational part of health care to infrastructure, from food stamps to job training, the message from the White House and the Republican-majority Congress has been crystal clear: Go bother the states, not us.

In the view of the Trump administration, federal government eventually would shrivel to the military and homeland security, with a dash of noxious but widely varied enforcements thrown in for good measure.

Other than issues like barring abortion, which somehow Republicans accept as a good thing for federal agencies to govern centrally, or enforcing marijuana laws even in states where it has been legalized, the GOP would prefer that education, social services, support for the arts and sciences all go to local authorities, along with the bills to pay for it all. Trumpworld would eliminate environmental and consumer protections altogether, in localities and across the nation, to allow more corporate freedom and profits — and maybe, jobs.

Guess what? At least some of the states are fighting back.

California, and now New York, have taken on the mantle of environmental leader, essentially challenging the regulation changes in Washington. California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has gone to China to work with that government at pursuing the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, and the state is strengthening its auto emission and air quality standards even as the federal regulations fall.

New York is among those states moving ahead on preserving the more serious requirements for health care by companies who want to continue doing business in the state. Several others, including red states, want to preserve Medicaid to support health care. New York is also keeping its abortion and contraception access policies, and is pushing free tuition for community college, all programs that Republican Washington opposes.

Cities across the nation are standing up to preserve “sanctuary” status, promising to keep their police forces focused on crime, not on immigration round-ups, as desired by Washington.

The list is getting longer, with states and local jurisdictions standing up where the White House is insisting it no longer wants to go.

So, yesterday’s coincidental events could be seen as part of local backwash against a sense of exclusion of logic and reason from Washington.

The Puerto Rico election is, on the one hand, a pitch for inclusion. The territory walks like a state, talks like a state, votes like a state, and now just wants to be recognized as such. The hitch for the debt-bound territory is that Republican assess that a new state in Puerto Rico might tend to support Democrats, and, of course, such partisanship trumps all common sense. But at a time when people are at least emotionally distancing themselves from U.S. politics, it is interesting to see Puerto Rico begging to be included.

The lawsuit by Maryland and the District of Columbia will be another distraction, of course. Other lawsuits citing the emoluments clause have been dismissed by courts who have found that the plaintiffs have no personal grievance that has resulted. The Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, for example, sits on government land, and visiting dignitaries take it for granted that they need to stay there; the Trump Organization has said it is too difficult for them to know and record how much business is represented by such foreign visits, and do not total the costs. But it is a clear case of the Trump family benefiting from having Mr. Trump in the White House.

The lawsuit charges that Mr. Trump’s failure to distance himself from his private business has undermined public trust and violated constitutional bans. Some legal experts said a suit by state and local governments could have stronger standing to sue the president. It is a legal first.

As an added bonus, should this suit progress, it is expected that there would be a demand to review Mr. Trump’s tax returns, which the President has declined to provide.

I have to believe that the President continues to bring these weird situations upon himself, either by insisting that he can run his private business through his sons while being president, or by pursuing policies that try to grind people into budget cuts that will only positively affect the wealthy. Each of these congressional hearings, special counsel investigations, court battles wear on the attention of an already dysfunctional White House.

Who knows, perhaps the President likes mixing into this sort of conflict. But the rest of us don’t.

##

terryschwadron.wordpress.com