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‘Stimulus’ Legislation Allows State Legislatures to Override Governors Who Refuse Bailout, Accept Funds Anyway

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th, 2009 at 10:15 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Here’s a nice little tidbit: the so-called “stimulus” bill includes a provision that allows state legislatures (like, perhaps, South Carolina’s) to override their Governors’ (like, perhaps, Mark Sanford, R-SC) decision not to accept borrowed bailout funds, simply by passing a concurrent resolution.

In other words, state legislatures can override the GOP Governors out there who have kept their respective spines and integrity intact, and force the state to accept this dirty money over the wishes of that state’s chief executive.

The text, taken from pages 490-91 here (warning: massive .pdf file), reads as follows:

SEC. 1607. (a) CERTIFICATION BY GOVERNOR.–Not
26 later than 45 days after the date of enactment of this Act,
1 for funds provided to any State or agency thereof, the
2 Governor of the State shall certify that: (1) the State will
3 request and use funds provided by this Act, (2) and the
4 funds will be used to create jobs and promote economic
5 growth.

6 (b) ACCEPTANCE BY STATE LEGISLATURE.-If funds
7 provided to any State in any division of this Act are not
8 accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the
9 State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent
10 resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such
11 State.

While this means that principled Governors won’t be able to overcome their state legislatures’ desire to get a piece of the borrow-and-spend pie, there is an upside: folks like Sanford can be as principled as they want in their opposition to the bailout, while not having to face the blowback of their state’s not getting any cash from this bill. This means that, however this boondoggle turns out, principled GOP Governors with less-principled state legislatures may be left sitting in the best of all possible positions.

That’s not too bad a position to be in, is it?

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  • daves_not_here

    This seems like blatant undermining of the state executive authority and responsibility. Can it even be constitutionally acceptable for the federal government to put a back door option like this into a law?

    • mikefisk

      …you ever think “Constitutional” ever stopped them?

    • http://jeffemanuel.net Jeff Emanuel

      …when it’s Democrats who are in power?

      • Oz

        I can’t see how this would get past the Supreme Court.

        • Lammo

          about McCain-Feingold. It is bad strategy (and tactics) to rely on the Court of Final Error to do the right thing, even if we did manage to fill it with Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas clones.

      • Aaron Gardner

        When FDR brought his socialist New Deal a lot of it was challenged on Constitutional grounds, and rightly struck down. We must point out the violations and prepare our cases because this is going to pass and we must fight it now via the courts on its Constitutionality.

        • http://jeffemanuel.net Jeff Emanuel
          • Aaron Gardner

            I suppose I should just keep my opinion too myself.

            /screw that

            Look Jeff I may not be able to write the frickin brief but there are people who read RedState that could and I don’t mind expressing that they would have my support as a grassroots conservative to get public support up for their cause, our cause.

            You want to dial it back a bit, we are on the same side. We should elevate these issues, that’s why you wrote the article right?

          • Scope

            You wrote a diary entitled “My bipartisan Economic Plan.” You suggested that your recommended 40% infrastructure spending plan should go to the state’s legislatures to choose who to give the contracts to based on bids. You then say that it should have a final sign off from the Governor. My immediate thought was that you give state legislatures more credit for bipartisanship and honesty then they deserve. With this diary we see that Governors have “no” last say. The South Carolina example is a good one, and I’m sure there are many more.

            Have you also read the diary by Kenny Solomon where he points out that Obama overrode Bush’s executive order 13202 which now says that all of the infrastructure projects coming out of this disaster will have to be given to “Union” companies and workers?

            And, as to your suggestion to bring this before the Supremes as unconstitutional, just how far do you think that would go considering that the Democrats now have complete control?

          • Aaron Gardner

            Maybe you could have commented on that diary and we could have a discussion about improvement on the concept. But don’t try and throw that in my face as some sort of contradiction…it’s not.

            I thought about the things you brought up but figured that since all of us know about those things that any actual bill would have to be written to protect against the effects of EO 13202.

            Lastly you sy the democrats control everything….well last I checked we still had a slim majorit on the court when it really matters. The odds are enough in our favor that it would be defeatism in it’s worst form to not oppose it and take it to the SCOTUS on grounds of Constitutionality.

          • The_Gadfly

            but if anybody can figure out a way to certify me as the plaintiff, I’ll be more than happy to oblige in that roll. Same thing applies with moving the census project to directly reporting to Rahm.