States Rights v. Corporate convenience - no contest

Perhaps a lot more on this in the future, but for now, Richard Burr our anesthitizingly fair haired Senator, has proposed a bill that would pre-empt state regulation of food labeling. There is an ambiguous claim that this would make us safer, but the gist of Burr's thinking, and much of the GOP's view on all consumer protections is in this quote.

"It makes absolutely no sense," he said, "to suggest to any business that in the future they may have to market their product in 50 different configurations in 50 different states."

I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's enlightening new book on the American Food chain and how it has been radically changed largely to accomodate large food processing companies, to the detriment of the autonomy of the farmer and the health of the consumer, albeit while finding a way to greatly reduce the cost (though increasing the unhealthiness) of the common calorie for Americans. And I don't doubt that companies like ADM and General Mills would very much favor ending nettlesome state regulation of their industries.

And, gosh, it sure seems like common sense to give business one market, one set of regulations, and one set of regulators with which to deal.

But unfortunately for the GOP, it is only further proof of how expediently they view their principals. It used to be that the Republicans supported the idea of a "Republic", a configuration of states which held most of the legislative power but which for a certain limited set of government perogatives - mainly national defense - deferred to the National legislature. But that was when the 14th Amendment was being used to bring obsteperous bigotry to heel or when the national legislature was acting to create a floor of consumer and civil rights protections upon which State legislatures could enact further protections.

Now, with control of both Houses and the Presidency, the right-wing sees the notion of an extremely limited Federal government as quaint, and more importantly, hostile to Corporate profits. So, Burr and other Republicans are busy proposing the pre-emption of state regulations, in food labeling and in consumer lending protections.

Now, I should say, I don't think what they are proposing is unconstitutional; I think the commerce clause gives Congress the kind of power they seek to use, and were a court to look at such pre-emptive regulations, it would have to give strong deference to the determination of the legislative body that they fell within the Commerce Clause's scope. But I do think the GOP is hypocritical as all hell when having objected to Federal attempts to protect the rights of minorities and protect the air we breathe as breaches of the Founding Fathers' original intent, as, I believe Bill Frist might call it, judicial tyranny, or as George Wallace might have labeled it, Northern agression, suddenly turn into Alexander Hamilton's wet dream running roughshod over all manner of state perogatives. This is after all the same Senate that has 48 members, all Republican, who support a vaguely worded Constitutional Amendment that would strip states' legislatures of the right to change the definition of marriage, an institution almost universally the domain of states.

The aim of these bills is simple. Create a ceiling on regulations, above which a state cannot reach, or at least has to ask permission to do so. Thereby create one regulator, a regulator like the FDA which has little hope of ever having the manpower to replace the state regulators and Attorneys General, and which can be reigned in by reduction in enforcement budget, as the GOP has done to the IRS and other agencies.

In the face of Corporate convenience, the GOP can not find its stomach to protect the local democracies which it once thought should be left to their own decisions on school busing and desegregation. What the Federalist papers might be interpreted to mean, a limited federal government granting most power to local democracies is not their aim. The stomping out of government, and therefore the subjugation of the people's will (the bill is thought to be aimed at direct democracy proposition passed by Californians) is what they aim to achieve.

Of course, putting this much power in the hands of the federal government has a risk. Should the political tide turns, and it would only take one election, a national legislature filled with more activist government supporters could rain down government regulations much stricter than the Corporate benefactors would want.

UPDATE - For a report, timely sent to me just after I wrote the above, about Congress's proclivity to usurp the state's rights it ran for election supporting, go here.