The Virtue of Localized Government

It may not be in the headlines much these days, but the healthcare battle rages on.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, no stranger to controversy and risk taking, has taken his state’s resistance of the Obama administration’s healthcare bill to the courtroom, challenging it on constitutional grounds. Virginia argues that the bill is not valid under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and that the bill violates the Tenth Amendment, as the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law before the passage of the healthcare bill forbidding the government from compelling citizens to purchase insurance. (See the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act here).

The Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that it should be brought in three years, closer to when the bill is set to take effect. July 1^st is the date set for the debate to begin in court, and many Virginians will be watching with rapt attention. For a more comprehensive account of this story, see here and here.

We all know the arguments for and against the healthcare bill, as we have heard them since the outset of the Obama administration. It is important for every American to form his or her own interpretation of what the Constitution has to say about this and other issues. However, let us take a few moments to consider the vital importance of localized government in this legal debate, as well as its importance in the American political tradition.

Many Americans need to be reminded frequently that the United States is a nation of independent states held together by a sovereign, yet limited, federal government. This legacy goes back to the days of the thirteen colonies, in which each colony governed itself with little, if any, real interference from the British government. Cuccinelli’s Virginia, in particular, knows a thing or two about self-government. The Virginia House of Burgesses began meeting in 1619, existing as an elected representative legislature with powers to make laws governing the Virginia colony, and it did so without the express permission or oversight of the British Crown. In other words, localized government began in America virtually the minute that British colonists set foot on dry land. What’s more, the colonies, in practice, independently governed themselves for a century or more before declaring independence from their mother country. Importantly, they did so as thirteen separate entities, only uniting when faced with the common threat of tyranny from Britain. Following the unification of the colonies and the American Revolution, the legacy of the independent, autonomous states was preserved in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, signifying the importance of the federalist system.

So how does this apply to us today, and more particularly to the healthcare debate?

This is, as they say, a “teachable moment,” an occasion to be reminded of the virtue of localized government, a favorite theme here at American Majority.  I wrote in a post a few days ago that the federal government would be expanding its scope too far by implementing a Government 2.0-style approach, involving more people in its affairs via social media and networking, and my most prominent reason for this argument was the resultant loss of local emphasis. When people become increasingly focused on the affairs of the federal government, they lose sight of the matters that affect them on a day-to-day basis, and in which they have the most say. The Founding Fathers never meant for the federal government to grow as large as it has, and in fact they feared the centralization of power into the hands of the national government (see Federalist 32). So, when a law comes along seeking to mandate that every American purchase health insurance, Americans should certainly be asking, “Why should I have to buy insurance?” But, what they should be asking with equal fervor is, “Why, and on what constitutional grounds, has the federal government taken this power to regulate from the states?”

The healthcare debate, and this blog for that matter, are less about healthcare than they are about the preservation of the American tradition of localized government. Let us view Attorney General Cuccinelli’s lawsuit, as well as that of the fourteen other governments co-filing in Florida, as a battle not for freedom to purchase (or not to purchase) health insurance, but as a defense of Americans’ long-standing tradition of freedom to govern themselves locally.

The virtue of such local government cannot be overstated. In a debate almost two years ago, National Review Online Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg explained his view on the importance of local governance this way: “Why not let a thousand flowers bloom, and let one community live the way it wants, and another community live the way it wants? At least the beauty of that is if you win in a democratic fight, and you infringe on the rights or the prerogatives of somebody else in your community, you’ve got to look them in the eye every day. But people who live on the west coast or the east coast or the north or the south, and want to impose one vision on the entire country…that is what I oppose, because freedom is about not just freedom for individuals but freedom for communities.”

I am a proponent of looking beyond common buzzwords and concepts and finding deeper meaning, so let us apply that perspective here. Let us look beyond the healthcare debate and see the deeper implications of this legal battle. This fight is immediately about my choice in healthcare. However, it is more importantly a fight for the preservation of a system in which I have a voice in the doings of my town and state, in which my neighbors and I can discuss and debate the best policy for our immediate community, and in which I will see the effects of my agenda on the lives of my family and neighbors every day. As Jonah Goldberg put it, it is a struggle for the freedom of my community to govern itself.

The fight for the freedom to govern locally continues, and this is only one front. Across the nation, American Majority is searching for the people who will step up to the front lines and get involved in their local and state governments. Are you one of them?