If one regards the rule of law as critically important to the American experiment, there’s a showdown brewing in Richmond between the rule of law and the interpretation of those rules.
Dr. Holsworth over at Virginia Tomorrow calls the new “Cuccinelli Doctrine” a sort of conservative reaction to the federal leviathan.
Not sure if it’s a precedent I would want to hand to revisionists, but the concept is interesting:
In essence, the Cuccinelli Doctrine says this:
It is the job of the Virginia Attorney General to identify and counter instances where the federal government may be unconstitutionally or illegally extending authority over the states.
Dr. Holsworth goes on to describe climate change and national health care as two instances where Attorney General Cuccinelli has stepped forward and challenged federal overreach.
I certainly applaud him for redefining the role of Attorney General — and it keeps with Cuccinelli’s campaign promises to do just that. That’s why I voted for the guy!
I do wonder though… in different hands, is this a good thing? How would this have worked during Massive Resistance? Jim Crow? Or on the flip side of the coin, the New Deal? Socialized medicine? Great Society?
Which means we have four years – four years before this doctrine conceivably falls into the hands of an Attorney General who does not share Ken’s principles and would ostensibly turn a blind eye in an instance where federal overstretch is apparent, yet by the omission of the AG’s office such an overstretch would be given the benefit of plausibility.
Keep your eyes on this one, folks… it’ll get more interesting in the months to come.
[As preface: I typically support the Democratic party and "liberal" policy objectives, but I have real sympathy for federalist arguments as well. It's a nettling tension in my political sentiments.]
You’re right that this will be a topic of growing interest. Since the Civil War, most (or all?) of the state-level resistance to expansions of federal power has been undertaken in the name of racist state and local laws and customs. (There’s an interesting debate about how the dynamic existed before the Civil War, and I have sadly not yet mastered the history enough to articulate it clearly, in this or perhaps any forum.)
Logic and constitutional text support the observation that 10th Amdendment/federalist arguments are of course not racist per se — but the historical association will present a significant rhetorical challenge for folks like Cuccinelli, should the topic really move into the mainstream of our discourse. And frankly, the GOP’s unmistakable paleness of average hue is not going to be of any assistance in countering that meme.