Roll over, James Madison: where have all the federalists gone?

• Author: Walker, Jesse
• Position: Rant

WE MAY BE losing liberties in the war on terrorism, but at least we know they're disappearing. We've heard less about the injuries done to federalism, because the people who usually speak up for that principle-the conservatives-have been largely AWOL.

Federalism comes in many flavors. There is your garden-variety laboratories-of-democracy federalism, where Oregon can institute single-payer health care and Wisconsin can throw everyone off welfare and Iowa gets to watch and learn. There are more hard-cover varieties too, like National Review Online chief Jonan Goldberg's proposal to do away with "98 percent of all conservative-versus-libertarian arguments" by decentralizing most public policy to the cities and counties.

But it's hard to devolve decision making when Washington keeps arrogating power to itself. Since 9/11, a Republican administration has federalized airport security, imposed new unfunded mandates on local transportation authorities, and even flirted with moving the military into domestic police work. A few conservatives have stood up against such changes. Others, including some purported federalist fanatics, haven't complained about much besides the new airport security regime--and that mostly because it won't engage in racial profiling.

One conservative who's stuck to her federalist ideals is the hardest-working housewife in politics, Phyllis Schlafly. In a syndicated column this summer, she thundered against "increased federal control" in the wake of 9/11, targeting her ire at Operation TIPS (the administration's proposed national clearinghouse for Stalinoid snitching), the USA PATRIOT Act, and the president's National Strategy for Homeland Security.

The last, Schlafly wrote, "sets us on the path of morphing driver's licenses into a national ID card." She noted that such licenses are and should be under state jurisdiction"-and suggested that Washington could achieve the same national-security ends without stepping on the Constitution if it would merely reform "the irresponsible way it issues visas to people from terrorist countries."

She also objected to the idea of using the military as domestic cops: "If U.S. troops are to defend us against terrorists, they...