The Reflecting Pool
In This Article
- Back in the Pool
- Immigration Collapse a Loss to States
- Real ID Expansion Helps to Doom Immigration Bill
- Senate SCHIP Deal Poses Another Dilemma for State Officials
- Maryland Delegate Bonds With Senators
- No Child Left Behind Task Force Holds Reunion
- NCSL Holds Off Preemption in Farm Bill
Previous Editions
An eye on the state-federal relationship.
By Carl Tubbesing
July 12, 2007
The Reflecting Pool has been on an extended break since late May. We know this is not an effective way to build a loyal readership or win the Pulitzer Prize, so we apologize both to our readers and our publicist for this gaffe. We’ll try not to let it happen again.
Professional columnists write ahead when they need a break. The Pool didn’t have the foresight to do that. Besides, how could we have predicted the state-federal twists, turns and switch-back curves that we’ve encountered in the past six weeks? To help you catch up, this column will offer short summaries of some of the most important developments you might have missed while The Pool was away.
Immigration Collapse a Loss to States
The comprehensive immigration bill that the Senate failed to pass in late June would have been a good deal for states. In a June 27 letter, NCSL’s leaders pointed out that the bill addressed “the impact of immigration on the states” and did it without imposing unfunded mandates or preempting state authority.
A highlight of the bill was inclusion of State Impact Assistance Grants, which would have provided states a dedicated pot of money for the health and education costs of immigrants. State legislators and our staff had worked hard over the past two years to make sure the grants were part of the final package. Well, they were part of the package. Unfortunately, there was no “final package.”
Real ID Expansion Helps to Doom Immigration Bill
There was a component of the Senate immigration legislation that we didn’t like. The provision is pretty easy to describe. How our efforts to remove the offending language helped hasten the demise of the whole package is, on the other hand, almost impossible to explain—certainly not in 25 words or less. The problematic provision would have required immigrants to have a Real ID driver’s license to get a job. In a letter to the Senate, NCSL President Leticia Van de Putte objected to this requirement on the grounds that it would have turned the Real ID program from an option to a mandate on states.
Our staff mobilized state legislators in support of an amendment offered by Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester that would have struck the Real ID language. The Tester-Baucus amendment drew support from opponents of Real ID and from conservative Republicans who were working to defeat the underlying immigration bill.
When the amendment survived a tabling motion, it brought a complicated and impenetrable parliamentary maneuver to a halt. The Senate couldn’t proceed to other amendments and the Democratic leadership had to withdraw the bill—leaving state legislators and their lobbying staff to ponder the law of unintended consequences and the old, but nonetheless true adage, that no good deed goes unpunished.
Senate SCHIP Deal Poses Another Dilemma for State Officials
Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee reached a deal to provide additional funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by raising the federal tobacco tax by 61 cents. The committee estimates the increase, which would take the federal tax to $1 per pack, would raise $35 billion over five years. State legislators should like the extra money for the popular 10-year-old program. However, they may not like the effect that an increase of the federal tax would have on state revenues from their own taxes on cigarettes.
Federal Funds Information for States, a joint project of NCSL and the National Governors Association, estimates that states stand to lose $750 million dollars in the first year after a 61-cent federal tax increase—due to decreased sales. Many state legislators won’t like other parts of the Finance Committee agreement either—including numerous restrictions on state flexibility.
Maryland Delegate Bonds With Senators
Yesterday, Maryland Delegate Sandy Rosenberg represented NCSL at a meeting arranged by the U.S. Senate Democratic leadership on food stamps and other nutrition assistance elements of the new Farm Bill. Senate schedules are so full that is rare to ever find 10 senators in the same room at once—even on the Senate floor. But 10 of them, including such heavyweights as Majority Leader Harry Reid and Massachusetts icon Ted Kennedy showed up for the hour-long session. Delegate Rosenberg, the only state or local elected official in the mix, was a big hit and was especially well-received by the senators who once served in their state legislatures, including Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow and Montana Senator Jon Tester.
No Child Left Behind Task Force Holds Reunion
In early 2004, NCSL’s leadership created a bipartisan task force to examine the federal No Child Left Behind law and to make recommendations for improving it. The task force, co-chaired by New York Senator Steve Saland and Minnesota Senator Steve Kelley, met eight times in 10 months and produced a set of 44 recommendations that was adopted unanimously by the NCSL Executive Committee in early 2005. The report was the first by any major national organization and placed NCSL squarely as a leading critic of the law and the way it was being implemented.
In mid-June, 10 former members of the task force reconvened in our nation’s capital to get updated on recent No Child Left Behind developments, to review the NCSL recommendations and to plot lobbying strategy for affecting reauthorization of the law. Most of the experts who met with the group were not sanguine that Congress and the president will be able to agree on a renewal of the law this year. If they can’t, then it is likely that nothing will happen until 2009—after the next presidential and congressional elections. That could be good news for state legislators hoping to have more influence on the process than they have been able to muster so far.
NCSL Holds Off Preemption in Farm Bill
State legislators have several interests in a new Farm Bill—most prominently rural development and nutrition programs. We discovered another one in late May when one of the House Agriculture subcommittees approved legislation that contained broad preemption of state authority to regulate food safety. For example, the language would have given the secretary of agriculture the authority to prevent states from regulating trans fats or genetically modified organisms. Kansas Senate President Steve Morris, who heads up NCSL’s Farm Bill working group, sent a letter to the committee chair, Minnesota Representative Colin Peterson, asking that the provision be struck from the bill to be considered by the full committee. Senator Morris’ letter had the desired effect. The draft of the chair’s mark of the bill, which was released this week, drops the preemption language.
Carl Tubbesing is the deputy executive director of NCSL.