Coordination Works | August 26, 2010 --

Senator Sylvia Allen of Arizona took on a herculean task this past 2010 Legislative Session by passing a bill requiring local governments to engage in the coordination process to protect citizen’s personal rights and property rights.

Senate Bill 1386 requires cities, towns, counties and taxing districts to engage federal and state agencies in coordination whenever a federal/state rule, regulation, plan or policy is more restrictive on personal and property rights than local law.

The bill was designed to provide the impetus to local governmental bodies that might think they lack the authority to bring the federal and state agencies to the negotiating table.  It serves a second purpose of providing citizens a method for persuading their local governments to engage in coordination for their protection.

Opposition to the bill was spirited, and the Sierra Club testified against it at a committee hearing.  The House passed the bill 34-23, but in the Senate conservative private property supporters stepped up and the bill passed easily 20-9.  Co-sponsors with Senator Allen were Senators Huppenthal, Verschoor, Gould, Melvin, Gray and Pearce.

Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law in April and Arizona became the first state in the Union to mandate that local governments act to protect their citizens through the coordination process.

Senator Allen and Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute called American Stewards of Liberty President Fred Kelly Grant for review of the bill in the drafting process.  The bill, as passed, mandates implementation of the coordination process that is promoted by American Stewards.

On August 7, 2010, the legislative push toward local coordination efforts took yet another giant step forward.

The Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) voted unanimously to recommend that the Arizona statute be put in model statute format and presented to all fifty state legislatures.

Dranias and Grant presented the Arizona coordination statute to the Task Force and requested that it be approved for model status.  Both the public membership and private business membership of the Task Force voted unanimously to support the statute after a round of spirited questions as to whether coordination would help with specific issues in various parts of the country.

ALEC is an organization of non-partisan conservative legislators and private businesses committed to work for limited government, free market enterprise and federalism that respects the role of state and local government.  Its stated mission is “to promote these principles by developing policies that ensure the powers of government are derived from, and assigned to, first the people, then the States, and finally, the Federal Government.”

It is a mission that serves well the intent of the Founders in ratifying the Tenth Amendment, which assures that the People’s rights are protected.  Those individual rights are best protected at the local government level, where the people know and have access to their elected officials.

One of the most important activities of ALEC are presentations of model statutes to conservative law makers who then sponsor the legislation in their respective state Legislatures to protect personal rights, property rights and liberty

The Arizona statute, and now the model statute, requires that cities, towns, counties and taxing districts “demand by any lawful means” that federal and state governments engage them in coordination when local regulations, rules, plans or policies are “less restrictive” on personal and property rights than federal or state law.

“Coordination” is defined in the statute as “the process by which the federal or state government seeks in good faith to reach consistency” with any “less restrictive” local regulation, rule, plan or policy.

“Less restrictive” is defined as imposing “less of a burden on the exercise of rights, privileges or immunities enjoyed by individuals, organizations or businesses.”  Under the statute whenever federal or state regulations, rules, plans or policies impose upon citizen’s rights a more stringent adverse impact than local law, the local government is required to demand that the federal or state government engage in the coordination process to reach consistency with the local law.

The statute provides that if the federal or state government refuses to coordinate, the local government “shall hold public hearings, consider the evidence and vote on whether to authorize litigation to enforce” the coordination requirement.  The coordination requirement is made “mandatory.”

If in spite of the mandate, a local governing body refuses to coordinate, it must “specifically vote” not to engage in coordination.  This requirement assures transparency to the public of a refusal of local elected officials to protect citizen’s rights.  An elected official will have to go on record as being opposed to protecting those rights through the coordination process.

Any person who resides in or does business in the state can serve a written demand on a local governing body to comply with the statute.  If that person’s rights are damaged by the failure to comply, the governing body must hold a public hearing to “present information on the decision not to demand coordination.”

Again, this provides transparency to the public of a refusal by elected officials to protect personal rights and property rights.  Such public disclosure will help voters decide whether their interests are being well served by incumbent officials.

The transparency provisions will make it virtually impossible for elected officials to secretly hide a refusal to protect citizen’s rights.

In some cases, a governing body may attempt to curry favor with the voters by “talking” coordination, but not really working to implement the process.  Some local elected officials become so complacent that they allow damage to individual rights by their failure to exercise lawful local authority.  The public hearing provisions of this statute will clearly reveal such complacency.

The next step in furthering the coordination process will be for individual legislators in their respective state legislatures to take up the cause and sponsor the model statute.  Legislators are already poised to do that in Montana, Idaho and possibly Kansas.

American Stewards of Liberty
Copyright 2010
PO Box 1190 Taylor, TX 76574
asl@americanstewards.us
www.AmericanStewards.us