Week 14 One Question Response --- Reenacting Federalism to Counter Corruption

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I write this in response to the question given to us this week, “One could argue that political entrepreneurship represents a distinct path toward corruption and should thus be illegal. However, it seems inevitable that political entrepreneurs will arise who are able to circumvent those laws. Assuming that to be the case (i.e. that no laws can be watertight against such corruption and influence), how would a return to federalism (i.e. strong state governments and a relatively weak federal government) limit the extent to which political entrepreneurs can defraud the citizenry?” Many different ways of handling the situation come to mind. As we have discussed several times over the course of this semester, switching our current government style from the strongly centralized form that holds power today to a more federalized form could potentially solve many issues present in our current society. In my opinion, allowing for a return to federalism could greatly reduce the power given to political entrepreneurs across the nation. By removing the near complete control these corrupt political members have at the federal level and giving it to the individual states, we are essentially removing their ability to create and shape these laws in order to grant themselves and those involved in their corruption a loophole to escape punishment for their wrongdoings. I believe that, if the states held the vast majority of power, it would make this task much more difficult for these political entrepreneurs because, instead of having to only convince one rule making body to enact these rules into law, they now have to convince each and every state government they want to work in to allow their schemes to take effect. With this in place, the amount of people these officials have to bring into their corruption grows increasingly larger based on the amount of states they would need to bring into their corrupted circle. The power of the individual states can also allow for a beacon of strong law and leadership to shine, even if all other states decide to enact whatever scheme for fraud the corrupt politicians managed to convince them to bring into law.