Ezra Klein apparently thinks states don't make sense since governance issues typically only relate to local (including up to the metro level) or national concerns. He writes:I just don't consider states to be a particularly useful political unit. Why not apportion Congress by race? Or population density? Or income? All of those options seem a bit nuts, but the only reason that states make any sense to us is because it's always been thus. All of those options make a lot more sense than organizing representation around the boundaries of Missouri. There's a good case to be made that a lot of states are badly drawn, especially the large square states of the West where drainages cross boundaries and giant chains of mountains separate parts of states from the rest of their land. Meanwhile, you've got the oddity of a slice of northern Arizona where a small strip of land is connected to the rest of the state basically through a couple bridges over the Colorado river, but is otherwise basically in Utah.
But that isn't to say that building geographic units of political representation makes no sense. It actually makes a ton of sense for both practical reasons and for reasons of shared interests.
In the practical sense, it would be extraordinarily difficult for a Congressional representative of the $15,000-$16,000 income bracket to get out to places and meet with constituents (never mind that income volatility would cause people to move Congressional districts annually). Geographic concentration makes meeting with constituents on a trip a lot easier and a lot of politics still needs to be done face-to-face. Note this is also important for voter education and turnout. Advertising networks are typically geographically based, door canvassing is aided by contiguous districts, etc. Neighbors can discuss issues.
But the other reality is that people in larger-than-metro areas do share concerns. What happens in Butte can affect my drinking water in Missoula. What happens with public lands in the Dillon area is clearly of huge concern to people in Missoula. It may be true that a lot of Montanans also care about the wilderness of Idaho and that we should have some say there, but the case I'm asked to make is not that state-based governance is ideal, but simply that it is more reasonable than proposed alternatives.
The final argument for states is not a secret one, but the tried and true argument for laboratories of democracy. Montana's experiments in public pensions helped bring about social security. Oregon's dabbling in a minimum wage brought about a national law.
A nation the size of the United States makes it extremely (extremely!) difficult for a relatively small and non-rich group of people to make an impact on public policy. States are one of the few places where significant policy changes can be made without huge financial backing. Those changes once implemented can be studied and picked up by the feds.
There are exceptions, of course. Ezra's home state of California has become unmanageable because of the geographic disparities, large population, and broken constitution. But that's an argument for breaking up California into smaller governing units (either dividing it into multiple states or simply delegating large amounts of power, including budgetary authority to regional political subdivions, states within a state).
California essentially has the problem of being a national government without the commensurate public attention or freedom of deficit spending. It is a nation governed like an American state -- not a good system. |
