The most recent developments in the Terri Schiavo case reveal an unpleasant truth about conservatives' feelings on federalism: they're flip-floppers. States' rights and local control may be a crucial part of the rhetoric, but on tough issues, the principle always gives way. We saw it in Bush v. Gore, we saw it with support for an anti-marriage amendment, and now we are seeing this kind of manuevering carried to a ludicrous extreme.

Friday morning, after a Florida judge ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed, the House Government Reform Committee went as far as issuing subpoenas to Schiavo and her family, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee invited them to testify. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist then emphasized that it is a federal crime to interfere with an individual's Congressional testimony. The tube was removed nonetheless, according to the Florida judge's decision. Now, it seems likely that the House and Senate will pass, and President Bush will sign, legislation moving Schiavo's case into federal court, thus requiring the reinsertion of the feeding tube while the federal appeal is pending.

These unwarranted assertions of national power upset my own federalist sensibilities. I, like most Americans, am deeply committed to the rule of law-- I see it as what is most incredible about our nation and its history. When Congress takes sketchy actions such as these, which seem to undermine the very division of powers upon which our government is based, I get nervous.

This is not to say that federal power is always a bad thing, or that conservatives always have the wrong idea when they want the federal government to decide an issue. For example, I agree that marriage law ought to be federal. It makes no sense, in a time when state borders are so frequently crossed, that a couple could be married in one state and unrelated in another.

Is my outrage is just another example of a young idealist frustrated that pandering to the base trumps principle? Perhaps. But the issue at hand here is one of fact -- whether or not Terri Schiavo wanted to be alive and brain dead for decades -- and not one of politics -- whether the idea of keeping her alive is popular amongst the general public. When Congress takes it upon itself to intervene with the state's handling of such a deeply personal situation, I would hope all of us have enough idealism left to feel outraged.