Congressional Quarterly (03/09/08); Harkness, Peter

Governing magazine Editor and Publisher Peter Harkness reports there is concern that the federal government is attempting to dictate what policies states, counties, and cities must follow to meet national challenges rather than letting lower-level governments pursue such goals independently. "The White House intergovernmental office is a sham--a purely political operation manned by junior aides whose sole interest is promoting the administration's policies, and not at all about working with state or local officials to solve problems," Harkness writes. "Washington lobbyists now are working for more centralization, with the idea that their industries can cut a better deal at the federal level and avoid a patchwork of statutes and regulations." National League of Cities Director Don Borut calls this trend a move toward "coercive federalism," while the federal government also desires more authority but less responsibility for covering the bill. But Harkness says states are fighting back, and federal officials have been yielding on many key issues mainly because the states have the political imperative. For example, the U.S. Education Department has become more flexible in dealing with the No Child Left Behind law because a lawsuit from school districts claiming that states cannot be forced to do all the required testing unless Washington pays for it has been revived by a federal appeals court, and also because more and more of the Republican suburban base is unfavorably disposed toward the law. (www.cq.com)