Not The State Legislatures. Please. Please. Please.

There is a move underfoot, mostly by the Tea Party, to give state legislatures veto power over the federal government. Now, on the face of it, that sounds like a good idea. After all, some rather poor legislation can occasionally come out of our Congress. Having said that, I'm not so sure the idea of giving veto power to many state legislatures is a better idea. Take a look around at your state legislatures. Anybody see one they'd want to replace our national government with? If you're not sure, take a look at a map of your state that shows the political districts. If you think that map makes no good sense, just imagine your state legislature making decisions that affect the whole country and even the whole world. The problem with most state legislatures is that they're far more political then Congress. And being political doesn't necessarily translate into an honest representation of the population. How can that happen? Easy. A sweep by one party nationally, in any given election, at the right time, can get some real boneheads elected on the state level. If it happens near the time of reapportionment of electoral districts, right after a census, one party or the other can wind up with the ability to make it much more likely that in the next election they'll win more seats, both state-wide and nationally. It's a broken system and giving this system the opportunity to cause more grief just isn't the answer. If grief is what you want, why not just fire everybody and then walk away. A taste of no government will quickly refocus your mind on the need for national health. And I'm not talking about medical needs. To give states the veto power, would make the federal government virtually powerless. In fact there would be no point in having a national government under those circumstances. The Tea Party has a few good ideas. This is not one of them. They need to pay attention to what they wanted in the first place and watch out for those who want to radicalize and those who want to co-opt for one side or the other. Tea should be nonpartisan. Coffee too.