As the twig is bent.

• Author: Tubbesing, Carl
• Position: President Bill Clinton has a state governor's experience

President Clinton's experience as a state governor may make his administration more receptive to the concerns of state legislatures. Watch health and welfare reform for clues.

It was, by almost any measure, an impressive occasion. In mid-March, less than two months into the new administration, 100 state legislative leaders journeyed to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Bill Clinton. Speaking beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the White House state dining room, the president stressed his dual objectives of public investment and deficit reduction. He won applause for his support of several state initiatives, including mandate relief.

Maine Speaker John Martin captured the feeling: "We were in the East Wing. He knew us, called us by name. We felt welcome."

Ohio Senate President Stan Aronoff focused on the president's message: "We had been -- screaming about unfunded mandates for years. The president was saying he-understood; he was with us; he'd do something to help us."

In August, President Clinton spoke briefly to the NCSL Annual Meeting in San Diego. Beamed via satellite to three gigantic projection screens, the president also answered questions posed by a panel of six state legislators. The president broke during intense negotiations over the budget reconciliation bill to address the NCSL delegates. His message was an encouraging one for state officials: opposition to unfunded mandates, support for block grants, understanding of the issue of dedicating new gas tax revenues to the highway trust fund.

As Arizona Representative Art Hamilton points out, state officials were probably justified in expecting this new president to be sympathetic to their concerns. "State legislators, of course, are congenitally suspicious of governors. Yet, Bill Clinton had been with us in the state government trenches for years. It simply was natural to believe he would not forget just because he changed residences." The president himself reinforced this belief in his March meeting with legislative leaders. "I'd be hypocritical," he said, "if I changed my position just because I am no longer governor."

What does the record show so far? Has this former state official infused Washington with a fresh empathy for the problems of governing at the state level? Are there clues in the way the new administration approached its first major policy challenges as to how states may fare on issues, such as health care reform?

The answers, like most involving the federal government, are not especially straightforward. They lie partly in concrete policy outcomes, partly in administration initiatives awaiting final disposition, and partly in the structure and processes the president has established for dealing with state officials.

Clinton received considerable criticism for some early legislative defeats, most notably his...