For Thompson, federalism at heart of campaign
Draws mixed responses to the principle
WASHINGTON - It seemed like an easy vote when the US Senate took up the "Volunteer Protection Act." By a 99-1 margin, the Senate agreed to protect Good Samaritans from being sued if their acts of kindness toward strangers went awry. But the lone opponent, then-Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, argued the measure violated federalist principles by imposing a law on the states.
Now, as Thompson runs for president, his nearly ironclad view of federalism is at the heart of his campaign. While Thompson is winning over some conservatives with his embrace of federalism, he has alienated others with the way he chooses to apply the principle.
Thompson, for example, said federalist principles compel him to let states decide whether abortion or gay marriage should be legal - even though he regularly says he is "100 percent prolife" and opposes gay marriage. That has led some conservatives to say that Thompson is trying to have it both ways on key social issues.
Thompson has tried to allay such concerns by trumpeting his endorsement by the National Right to Life group, which opposes abortion. But one of Thompson's Republican opponents, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, has responded to the endorsement by launching a direct attack on Thompson's federalist rationale. Huckabee charged that Thompson was employing a states' rights argument used by advocates of slavery.
"That's what the whole Civil War was about," Huckabee said recently on Fox News. "Can you have states saying slavery is OK, other states saying it's not?" He said such logic is unacceptable "if abortion is a moral issue," adding, "you can't simply have 50 different versions of what is right."
Thompson has dismissed the analogy. "States' rights has been used in ways I would not have approved of," Thompson said in an interview. But he said that on most issues, including abortion, he prefers that states be able to make the decision.
He expressed irritation when asked if there was a clash between his view that states should decide the legality of abortion and his statement that he is antiabortion.
"I guess everything these days has to be translated into an abortion thing, but so be it," Thompson said. "Let's talk about the principle. The concept is not something I came up with."
As an example of federalism run amok, Thompson is critical on his website of the No Child Left Behind law, which requires schools to meet federal testing guidelines, providing insufficient funds while mandating a host of specific measures.
"Perhaps the clearest example of federal over-involvement in state and local responsibilities is public education," Thompson wrote. "It's the classic case of how the federal government buys authority over state and local matters with taxpayer money and ends up squandering both the authority and the money while imposing additional burdens on states. . . . A little more federalist confidence in the wisdom of state and local governments might go a long way toward improving America's public schools."
Thompson did not mention in his Web entry, however, that he voted for the No Child Left Behind bill. He has said on the campaign trail that the vote was a mistake, terming it a "case of a triumph of hope over experience."
But federalism was on Thompson's mind when he voted for the bill. Citing federalist principles, Thompson was the only senator to vote against an amendment to the bill called "teacher liability protection," which was intended to prevent frivolous lawsuits against teachers who try to control unruly students.
Thompson has been a federalist from the beginning of his political life. He said he was inspired by Barry Goldwater's book, "The Conscience of a Conservative," which says the federal government should "withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserves to the states."
Earlier this year, before entering the presidential race, Thompson engaged in a written dialogue on federalism with Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of National Review magazine. Ponnuru criticized Thompson's federalist position on tort reform, in which Thompson sided with trial lawyers and against congressional efforts to cap legal damages in areas such as product liability. Ponnuru wrote that federal guidelines are necessary so that companies don't have to keep track of "50 conflicting [and shifting] legal rules. In the name of federalism, however, Thompson promoted legislation that would, for the most part, remove this restraint."
Thompson responded on a conservative website with a general defense of federalism, writing that, "States can compete with each other to attract people and businesses - and that is a good thing."
Thompson said he was the lone vote in 1997 against federal protection for good Samaritans under the same federalist reasoning. "I can assure you I have nothing against good Samaritans," Thompson wrote. "If a person stops to help someone in distress on the highway and something bad happens, generally, the good Samaritan should not be sued by some overly ambitious trial lawyer. But states are, and have been for years, perfectly capable of handling this burning issue."
Ponnuru said he doesn't mind states having the final say on abortion or gay marriage. What is troubling, Ponnuru said, is that Thompson hasn't declared that he wants all states to ban abortion. Similarly, Thompson has been pilloried by the conservative religious leader James Dobson for opposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
"I'm OK with the federalist position on abortion as long as Thompson is willing to say what President Bush has said, that he would want the states to protect unborn life. He hasn't said that," Ponnuru said. 