Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507140044
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In the initial rush of hostility to racial integration of the public schools, ordered by federal judges, Almond thundered defiance. "Against these massive attacks," he said, "we must marshal a massive resistance." In words slightly less elegant, Allen threatened to "kick their soft teeth down their whiny throats."
In their clever strategy to make George Bush a one-term president, Democratic congressional leaders devised a series of measures they believed would enjoy a modicum of popularity with the public but would discomfit a Republican president professing attachment to conservative principles of limited government. When these bills reached his deak, Bush would be damned if he signed them and damned if he didn't.
One of the items that didn't pass while Bush held office, popularly known as the motor-voter bill, was a first order of business for the Democratic Congress elected with President Bill Clinton. This required the states to register voters for federal elections at motor-vehicle offices and in places where citizens applied for unemployment, welfare and disability benefits. It also required registration by mail and outlawed the automatic purge of those voters who had not, in a specified period, exercised their right to vote.
In Virginia, those not voting in a four-year cycle that includes two presidential elections are automatically removed from the rolls. Allen is defying the motor-voter mandate, joining other states that are seeking to have it overturned by the Supreme Court.
Returning the favor, the federal government has sued Virginia, and will seek a court order to force compliance by Jan. 1. The American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way also have filed suit against the state on behalf of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and other Virginia groups.
Allen would occupy stronger moral ground had he vigorously opposed an amendment to the state Constitution on the ballot last year. That was designed to accommodate motor-voter, applying it to state as well as federal elections in order to avoid keeping two sets of poll books. But the governor sat on his hands and the amendment was approved by a substantial majority. The General Assembly then passed a bill putting this in statute law but could not override Allen's veto.
The question arises: Will the state's defiance prove a case of the game not being worth the candle? Federal district judges already have upheld motor voter in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania. While the last two decided to comply, California has continued its appeal. My guess is the lower courts will decide that Congress was within its rights in trying to enlarge the federal franchise.
What the Supreme Court will say if it agrees to hear the case is anybody's guess. My own would be the states will lose. That said, it is certainly an issue worth adjudicating. But even if the high court decides the law is unconstitutional, the vast majority of states will have long since complied with it and Democrats will have what they believe will help them, which is tipping the scales further against the propertied class that normally votes Republican.
On another front, Clinton's secretary of education, Richard Riley, is threatening to stop payment on $58 million in federal aid for special education unless Virginia agrees to provide alternative education for those disabled or disturbed students expelled from class for refusing to behave. The issue is hardly of great moment since only 176 "special" students in the past year were expelled or suspended. But Allen and his superintendent of public instruction, William Bosher, are treating it as an important matter of principle.
"This is not just a special education issue," Dr. Bosher said, "it's a safe school and discipline issue. Young people need to know what's expected of them." The federal hearing officer who ruled in April that Virginia must provide alternative instruction for expelled students or lose all federal aid for special education used words that go to the heart of the present outcry against an overreaching national government. "The law," he said, "admits of no exceptions for dangerous students."
Putting his money where his mouth is, Allen is also joining a handful of states that are refusing a dollop of new federal money to implement Goals 2000. This might be called the Clinton-lite version of a national education policy said to be capable of lifting American students into the world's top rank by the end of the century. But considering the bad odor into which federal mandates have sunk, this one seems to exist mainly in the sphere of exhortation. As Secretary Riley put it, "We have chosen the bold step of operating Goals 2000 without promulgating regulations."
Considering that Virginia taxpayers spend more than $7 billion a year to operate their public schools, and 95 percent of that is raised in state and local taxes, the federal money contemplated here is almost laughably small. Allen's "no" would cost the state just under $10 million in the first two years of Goals 2000, or 1/15th of 1 percent of what it will spend on public education! Goals 2000 may start small, the governor would argue, but the time to strangle this baby is in its cradle.
With hands soiled by unreasoning devotion to the cause of white supremacy, those former governors fought a rearguard action against federal encroachments. Almond himself later admitted he knew "massive resistance" wouldn't work.
Allen may be in the vanguard of a new generation of conservatives that will redefine federalism. But states' rights can be an effective policy only when matched by an effective exercise of state responsibility. It's doubtful that many Virginia politicians are prepared to tap either the financial resources or the skilled personnel that would permit them to tell Washington with a straight face, "We are ready to assume your burdens and will do a better job."
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB