Previously marginalized state and local governments have taken the lead in fighting the present pandemic.
Counties were administrative divisions that mostly existed on paper, state governors were kept on an extremely tight leash, and the federal government was still in its infancy, its powers strictly confined to a few undeniably national concerns.
Intermittently, Beltway writers issued calls for others to abandon the swamps of Washington and rejuvenate local institutions and state politics, which served mainly to illustrate the desperation of the situation.
So states - and, in many cases, local governments - came to the fore.
Crucial, life-and-death matters were suddenly in the hands not of the federal government but of state and local authorities.
Spain's autonomous communities were supposed to have very extensive powers, including over decisions relating to public health - until, on March 14, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government declared a state of emergency and announced that the central government in Madrid would be assuming control.
In the United Kingdom, devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland -governments that some thought were moving toward an ad hoc form of federalism until the pandemic - have had no opportunity to exert influence on the response to the virus.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-response-federalism-state-local-governments-take-lead/#slide-1
Counties were administrative divisions that mostly existed on paper, state governors were kept on an extremely tight leash, and the federal government was still in its infancy, its powers strictly confined to a few undeniably national concerns.
Intermittently, Beltway writers issued calls for others to abandon the swamps of Washington and rejuvenate local institutions and state politics, which served mainly to illustrate the desperation of the situation.
So states - and, in many cases, local governments - came to the fore.
Crucial, life-and-death matters were suddenly in the hands not of the federal government but of state and local authorities.
Spain's autonomous communities were supposed to have very extensive powers, including over decisions relating to public health - until, on March 14, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government declared a state of emergency and announced that the central government in Madrid would be assuming control.
In the United Kingdom, devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland -governments that some thought were moving toward an ad hoc form of federalism until the pandemic - have had no opportunity to exert influence on the response to the virus.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-response-federalism-state-local-governments-take-lead/#slide-1
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