July 30, 2007 06:38 PM UTC

Harsanyi to State Legislators: STFU...Me to Harsanyi: Don't Cons Say the World Is "Flat?"

• 6 Comments
• by: davidsirota

My Denver Post blog colleague David Harsanyi today falls prey to what has become a fairly typical and, frankly, boring media meme – the one about how only the Very Serious Foreign Policy People in Washington should have any say over Serious International Affairs even if those international affairs affect all levels of government, and even if those same Very Serious Foreign Policy People are the same folks who walked us into the worst foreign policy disasters in a generation. Writing about Colorado Democratic and Republican lawmakers looking at ways to divest state funds from holdings in Sudan and Iran, he says that “last time I looked, foreign policy was the bailiwick of the federal government” and that “barely any [state legislators] were elected to the state House” to deal with international issues.

Except actually, state legislators were elected to oversee, administer and deal with state resources, meaning we did elect them to decide – or at least have a say over – where those resources are invested. Making wars may be the bailiwick of the federal government, but in a globalizing world, states have an increasingly important role to play in international issues as those issues relate to their responsibilities to state taxpayers and constituents. And I’m not just talking only about divestment campaigns. I’m talking about the whole ball of wax that the good folks I work with over at the Progressive States Network deal with all the time.

To see what I specifically mean, check out my response to Harsanyi over at Politics West. This is an especially important point for Mountain West states that are facing massive forest fires and a National Guard depleted by the war in Iraq. It is also a critical issue considering the Colorado legislature’s bipartisan international trade bill in 2006.