An argument as old as the nation will surface again this year in ways that would make James Madison proud.
The argument is about federalism, the principle that a nation this large and diverse cannot solely be ruled by a central power, but must share some authority with the states. How much authority should rest in Washington, and how much in Harrisburg, Trenton or Bismarck, N.D.? That's a topic endlessly disputed.
What's so different in 2005 is that the major political parties are switching sides in the argument.
The formula that has ruled national politics for decades - Republicans favor states' rights, Democrats federal control - was rendered obsolete by November's election. Now that Republicans firmly rule both the White House and Capitol Hill, with major inroads in the judiciary, they love the idea of national mandates and rules. And Democrats suddenly are making arguments they once denounced when they had the upper hand and sought to make such matters as civil rights and environmental law uniform across the land.
We see a Republican Congress trying to change the Constitution to block state and local experiments in gay and lesbian marriages. Meanwhile, liberals argue the virtues of variable state laws and local experiments.
President Bush restricts federal support for research on embryonic stem cells while California voters approve a $3 billion state investment in the same research.
Look for those reversals to continue, in such areas as abortion, gun control and education policy. Purists will claim political opportunism by both parties, which is true.
But the bigger truth is that this kind of experimentation in states could tell us much about the risks and benefits of social policy, and mollify an increasingly divided electorate.
"The U.S. Constitution was devised not as a means to avoid social and cultural polarization, but as a way to manage it without splitting the country apart," writes Andrew Sullivan in the New Republic. Just what Madison envisioned.
Eisner is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at: Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101, or e-mail jeisnerphillynews.com.
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