Federalism is not a new idea. It is as old as our republic. President Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural address, emphasized that "the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns" are state governments. In New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932), Justice Louis Brandeis, in a famous dissent, noted the power of federalism and that states serve as valuable testing grounds where the people can apply social and economic policies to address individual concerns. Said he:
"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." Id., at 311 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
The point of this article is to remind us, particularly our policymakers, of the benefits of government power rooted in federalism. For several years, I have been raising this issue to the federal courts, Congress, and federal agencies. I plan to keep pressing for Idaho's rights as a sovereign state. Federalism is too important to abandon.
[More simply, with an emphasis on state's rights we get 50 tries to get complex challenges right, with rapid adoption of those ideas that prove beneficial by other states. When we allow Washington to set the rules, we get one shot - inevitably compromised and corrupted, and then defended forever as the feds are loath to admit error or relinquish power gained.
It is in our interest to devolve power away from Washington and back to the states.
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