Adam Weinberg
Goldwater Republican
A quintet of Democratic Senators are introducing a bill to ban text messaging while operating a motor vehicle or mass transit vehicle nationwide.
While I am frequently guilty of this little crime myself, I am perfecty willing to risk that small citation to tell all of you what I'm thinking while planted at a stop light or in traffic. No, I'm not writing this posting from behind the wheel, and I am not against this bill to protect my own hide. Texting while driving is already illegal in California as of 2009 (I did as much as I could back in December).
Behind the PR angle of this bill called ALERT, which is supposed to put drivers on notice about responsible habits on the road in the face of emerging technology, is a reality which demonstrates another old fashioned Washington overstretch.
It sure seemed strange, considering the trend toward states adopting these laws, that the Federal government saw fit to butt in. After
all, isn't this a clear cut state issue? Yet they never yield from taking an opportunity in Washington to have a firmer grasp on the reins of power.
In fact the bill is not directed to drivers at all, but toward state governments, with the threat that they will be deprived of 25% of their federal highway funds (taxes paid by their residents) if they fail to pass laws as the Federal government decrees.
If this was an acceptable way to govern, we should surely have national standards for everything, and yet our Constitution lays out national standards for only a handful of very important things that a single country should have.
It seems the right of people in the states to decide about the laws in their home region (the basic principle behind so-called states' rights) is only favored when it impacts a constituency dear to a given political group. It has become a refuge for disingenuous, partisan disagreement, since no one in Washington but a few really believes in the idea any more.
Are they states as the name of our country suggests, or are they merely administrative districts to be manipulated by national leadership?
While I am frequently guilty of this little crime myself, I am perfecty willing to risk that small citation to tell all of you what I'm thinking while planted at a stop light or in traffic. No, I'm not writing this posting from behind the wheel, and I am not against this bill to protect my own hide. Texting while driving is already illegal in California as of 2009 (I did as much as I could back in December).
Behind the PR angle of this bill called ALERT, which is supposed to put drivers on notice about responsible habits on the road in the face of emerging technology, is a reality which demonstrates another old fashioned Washington overstretch.
It sure seemed strange, considering the trend toward states adopting these laws, that the Federal government saw fit to butt in. After
all, isn't this a clear cut state issue? Yet they never yield from taking an opportunity in Washington to have a firmer grasp on the reins of power.
In fact the bill is not directed to drivers at all, but toward state governments, with the threat that they will be deprived of 25% of their federal highway funds (taxes paid by their residents) if they fail to pass laws as the Federal government decrees.
If this was an acceptable way to govern, we should surely have national standards for everything, and yet our Constitution lays out national standards for only a handful of very important things that a single country should have.
It seems the right of people in the states to decide about the laws in their home region (the basic principle behind so-called states' rights) is only favored when it impacts a constituency dear to a given political group. It has become a refuge for disingenuous, partisan disagreement, since no one in Washington but a few really believes in the idea any more.
Are they states as the name of our country suggests, or are they merely administrative districts to be manipulated by national leadership?
