A Friday House committee hearing on the coronavirus yielded some encouraging results, as Democrats at times sounded like resounding proponents of federalism.
On the question of schools reopening, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California was pretty forceful.
“You cannot hand down an answer to — from the federal government that, you know, would absolutely protect these children,” she said. “One decision by the federal government is not sufficient to force these schools to open.”
Committee Chairman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said it similarly.
“It’s different in rural America than it is in urban America,” said Clyburn, who is also a Democrat. “So I don’t know that we up here can come up with a one-size-fits-all. We should delegate to the professional superintendents and principals of these schools to determine how best to reopen schools.”
Waters and Clyburn have just, perhaps unwittingly, championed the long-held conservative principle of federalism, one that Democratic policy so often eschews. It’s the same principle that drives conservatives to support leaving states to make their own closing and reopening decisions. It’s the same principle that conservatives have championed for decades, which holds that the federal government is too distant and too removed to be making certain decisions for states and communities.
President Trump isn’t a great messenger of federalism. He wrongly mused that his authority is total, enabling him to open and close states at will. His messaging on schools has been fraught with threats, as he warned he would block federal funding to states for not fully reopening schools well before districts across the country began deciding not to. Instead, his message should have been more about empowering states to open and reassuring people that it can be done safely while maintaining that those decisions are theirs to make. That’s the federalist message.
The broader lessons about politics are obvious for anyone connecting dots. Our country is a highly textured one. What is good for one goose out of 50 may not at all times be good for the gander. That truth holds in pandemic times and in prosperous times. Local leaders know what is best, and most importantly, they are situated closer to home and are more easily held accountable than those in Washington. May Congress remember that.
