Conservative innovators: The use of novel legal and administrative practices in state officeholders' challenge to federal powe

Social scientists have taken a strong interest in the mobilization of the Tea Party and subsequent rightward shift in American politics. In a short period of time, researchers have produced a thorough account of the Tea Party movement, as well as new patterns of conservative policy activity at the national level. This dissertation makes the case that this account, though valuable, has neglected one of the most important facets of conservative policy behavior in recent years: the realization of policy goals through the innovative use of state offices and administration. The most notable of these goals is a reallocation of power in the American federal system that would limit the authority of the federal government and expand the scope of exclusive state sovereignty. The empirical chapters of this dissertation describe a wide-ranging, well-coordinated state challenge to federal power. This challenge seeks to limit federal authority in areas such as budgeting and taxation, environmental protection, voting rights and election administration, immigration, health care, and the regulation of economic activity. To date, it has prevented the realization of major federal reforms, and secured a legal basis for many new state policies.;The dissertation shows that this challenge arises from the activity of a small number of state officeholders using techniques with little public visibility or political salience. This pattern stands in sharp contrast to conventional forms of policymaking and intergovernmental conflict, and also differs markedly from typical uses of the legal system by movement actors. The dissertation successively examines non-coordinated state opposition to federal policies (Chapter 2), coordinated litigation against federal agencies by state attorneys general (Chapter 3), revived efforts to call a Constitutional convention to pass a federal balanced budget amendment (Chapter 4), and the development of highly restrictive state election laws (Chapter 5). The concluding chapter makes the case that the current episode can be understood as a structural recurrence of the Progressive Era; there are striking ideological and strategic similarities between the first phase of Progressivism and contemporary state conservatism. This comparison suggests that the period of federal dominance from the New Deal onward is a moment in a long cycle of change in American federalism, rather than the conclusion of a teleological process. In addition, the comparison to Progressivism suggests a number of new empirical questions, and also provides a basis for venturing guarded predictions about future developments.