Columnist David Broder: GOP using politics of devolution

WILLIAM HAGUE, the embattled leader of the British Conservative Party, was in town recently, seeking what comfort he could find from the folks who run the equally embattled Republican Party. If misery loves company, they had a ball.

The Tories have shown no signs of regaining popularity in the almost two years since their 18-year run was ended by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his remodeled "New Labor" forces.

The Republicans at least have a majority in Congress -- though perhaps not for long -- and boast of two potential presidential candidates, Elizabeth Hanford Dole and George W. Bush, who consistently lead Vice President Gore in the polls for the 2000 election.

In his Washington interviews, Hague made it clear he is scrambling to reposition his party and emulate the Republicans on the issue of devolution, a fancy way of saying "government closest to the people."

The British Conservatives got on the wrong side of the question, Hague said, for two reasons. "During our long run in power, we lost touch with the people," and, in effect, became captives of the ubiquitous civil servants in Whitehall.

And with free-spending Labor majorities running many of the local councils, "we imposed central controls to get some fiscal discipline."

They are paying a political price for their policy. In Britain, as in the United States, more and more people are insisting that decisions be made locally by accessible officials.

Hague told a horror story about some of his own constituents who have had to take their plea to cut down rotten trees in their garden all the way from the local council (which approved) to an official of the Environmental Ministry in London, "who, of course, is the one person who has never seen their back yard."

But the Tories are playing catch-up. Blair's government has restored some authority to local councils and has created representative assemblies for Scotland and Wales, major steps toward federalism in Britain.

The Republicans hold the high ground on the federalism issue here. Shifting power out of Washington was a major tenet of the Reagan administration.

That philosophy was reflected in the unfunded-mandates legislation and the welfare reform law passed in 1995-96 by the first Republican Congress in 40 years.

With the nation's governors in Washington this week for their annual winter meeting, Republicans -- who lead eight of the 10 largest states -- are calling for further devolution, especially in education. They want fewer strings on federal aid, while President Clinton is seeking to use that assistance to induce all states to adopt his preferred school reforms.

This is a major fight, but hardly the only one. The first piece of legislation passed by the House this session -- largely on a party-line vote -- was an extension of the unfunded-mandates law. The original law mandated a procedure making it more difficult for Congress to pass any bill imposing more than $50 million of unreimbursed costs on state and local governments.

The new bill provides the same procedural protection on any measure that imposes $100 million in costs on the private sector. Environmental groups opposed it; business supported it.

While Congress is moving in this direction, the Clinton administration is going the other way.

Last year, the White House, reportedly at the prodding of Gore and his allies, redrafted the executive order on federalism policy, which was a Reagan administration document lightly revised in Clinton's first year.

The new draft was unanimously rejected by the "Big Seven" organizations representing state and local governments. They had not been consulted by the White House and they read the new language as a broad mandate for increased federal regulation.

After a stormy interlude, it was withdrawn, but the newest version, presented by the White House last month, also has been turned down by the states and localities, so the impasse remains.

The political impact of all this is uncertain. Lamar Alexander, a former governor of Tennessee, tried to make devolution a central feature of his 1996 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, but found little traction.

Bob Dole, who won the nomination, regularly pulled out a copy of the Constitution and pledged to restore the Tenth Amendment -- reserving all unenumerated powers to the states and the people -- if he were president. It seemed to do him little good.

But every survey shows greater public trust in local and state governments than in Washington, and this year's education policy debate will bring the issue to the fore.

Gore is on Washington's side, but he has tried to inoculate himself against the suspicion that he loves top-down regulation by becoming the champion of "reinventing government."

The policy debate is certain to continue. It remains to be seen if Republicans can make it a real political issue.

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