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[Ya-ta Boy]

"By accident of its birth -- a collection of separate colonies that slowly came together to form an independent union and revolted against the remote power of the British government -- the United States has an enduring bias toward localism, an aversion to centralized government that is part of its DNA. For some on the left, this has been seen as a positive. "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," Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote.

Even though progressives such as Brandeis have celebrated our federalism, it's important to remember that Brandeis lived and worked at a time when the federal government was icebound in conservative orthodoxy and the cause of social justice could be advanced only in a small number of states and cities. Segregationists like George Wallace and Richard Russell have celebrated our federalism, too, arguing for states' rights at a time when the national government was moving to abolish the Jim Crow laws throughout the South.

Conversely, liberals have argued for the right of the nation to move beyond its federalist constraints during those periods when they controlled the national government (the 1930s and, especially, the 1960s). And during the late, lamentable Bush presidency, conservative justices on the Supreme Court frequently forbade the states from enacting stricter regulations on business than those that Bush's administration had put in place.

The love of federalism is a sometime thing; its critics and champions switch places depending on who is in power at which level of government. But the problem with our allegedly ingenious federal system is not simply that half the time, if not more, it is an effective way to protect all that is biased and unfair in the American nation. The problem is also that federalism inherently subverts a coherent national response to many fundamental challenges the United States faces, at a time when other major nations -- our competitors in an increasingly global economy -- face no such structural impediment."

http://www.alternet.org/politics/144293/fed_up_with_federalism

People whine about the Electoral College but never do anything about it. Altering our federal system would be one way to eliminate that artifact of the dead hand of the past.

It's always struck me as simple-minded to think regular people can have a greater influence at the state level than at the national.

[Hater Depot]

I'm more fed-up with the Senate.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b790066c-dda0-11de-9f8b-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

[Ya-ta Boy]

I whole-heartedly concur with that.

On top of those points, I'd like to bi*ch and moan about the filibuster, where one person can hold up the entire US government. It's been a problem for some time, but lately it has become a farce. Right now, the Legislative Branch of the government is broken because of the abuse of the filibustering power.

It would be very hard to make the case that Senators are any more virtuous than the rest of us, given recent behavior. Holding up ambassadorships for months on end is a disgrace (Iraq and Brazil).

On the positive side, I do like the idea of a two-house legislature. It reinforces the idea of compromise, which is at the heart of our system. That's to the good. I also like the 6-year term which serves to insulate the Senators from the passions of the moment.

[Kuros]

I was expecting a sagacious treatment of Federalism that came to the conclusion that its not as sacrosanct as some Americans treat it.

Boy, was I off. Its a template to advance economic policy.

[Leslie Cheswyck]