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Another Conservative Gone Native

One of the saddest things I have witnessed over time is when a decent conservative from out in the states comes to Washington and then goes native. I saw it happen with Alaska's Governor Wally Hickel who was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Nixon in 1968. By 1970, Nixon was passing the word that he would be happy if Hickel left his Administration. He did.

President Reagan had his case of a governor going native. Jim Edwards of South Carolina was thought to be as sound a conservative as there was out in the states. He was brought to Washington by Reagan to be Secretary of Energy. It wasn't long before Edwards had begun to advocate items on the agenda of the bureaucrats. Reagan was said to be happy when he resigned.

It happened to Jimmy Carter, not surprisingly. Carter wanted conservatives in charge of his Justice Department. Thus Griffin Bell was named Attorney General and Peter Flaherty, the Mayor of Pittsburgh, was named Deputy Attorney General. Flaherty had been a stand-up conservative in Pittsburgh. In fact in the 1980 contest for the U.S. Senate, Flaherty ran to the right on most issues of the victorious Arlen Specter. But when Flaherty got to Washington, he reversed himself on a number of key issues.

There are many other examples over the years which could be cited. The leading candidate for the going native award for the Administration of George W. Bush would appear to be former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. Thompson was a reformer in his home state. He was the pioneer governor in crusading for welfare reform.

Thompson has done many questionable things since taking over from another Wisconsinite, Donna Shalala, as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The latest example of his going native is one of THE most troubling yet. And it is an initiative that, unfortunately, has received very little attention.

Thompson is pushing something called the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act. This is a piece of legislation which HHS wants every state legislature in the nation to pass. And when an agency such as HHS pushes a piece of so-called model legislation, it usually gets its way because word goes out that states which adopt the bill will be eligible for additional dollars. Bingo. That is the magic word. If this isn't stopped before most legislators go into session at the first of the year, watch for this bill to be adopted all over the nation.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has done an analysis of the legislation. ALEC says this model legislation being pushed by Thompson has been developed with the assistance of the Centers For Disease Control, the National Conference of State Legislatures-and by the way, ALEC was founded as a counterweight to the far left leaning NCSL-the National Governor's Association, the National Association of City and County Health Offices (another liberal organization) and a number of other liberal bureaucratic groups.

ALEC says the bill has a number of very troubling provisions. Among other things this model legislation grants governors broad authority to declare a state of emergency given an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition caused by a bio-terrorism epidemic or biological toxins; it allows public health officials, among others, broad, unfettered access to personal health information without patient consent; the bill requires pharmacists and physicians to report "unusual" health patterns, including personal information about persons exhibiting unusual health patterns; it grants public health official broad quarantine powers and allows public health officials to require medical examinations or vaccinations under penalty of committing a misdemeanor offense; this model bill allows public health officials to seize and control personal property and access to communications, and to engage in any necessary rationing, quota-setting or price-fixing; it grants governors exclusive power over the expenditure of funds appropriated for emergencies; the legislation requires the development of a comprehensive plan to coordinate attack response.

ALEC says this legislation, called MEHPA, strips individual and families of their rights and liberties at the expense of government; it represents unnecessary and duplicative legislation given existing state natural disaster statutes. It, according to ALEC, provides a number of potential legal loopholes for trial lawyers to extort. The bill grants overly sweeping takings rights to the government. It also fails to consider the needs of individual states. It consolidates broad power to public health officials, most of whom are unelected.

The legislation erects barriers to states' ability to respond, slowing down response times when there is an emergency. The legislation utilizes vague language to define key concepts, including when an emergency can be declared. The bill grants additional duplicative due process rights for quarantined persons.

And it allows public health authorities to ration drugs and other items, but does not specify the manner in which these items will be rationed. And finally, says ALEC, this model legislation ignores the potential costs - both dollars and human.

Does this sound like a bill that would be pushed by a conservative Republican? Would Tommy Thompson have advocated these measures before the Wisconsin legislature?

This legislation is a threat to our civil liberties. It must be exposed to the light of day in the next month-and-a-half. If protests are sufficient, and if conservative legislators in state legislatures are properly alerted, perhaps there is a chance to beat back this monster.

Tommy Thompson, whom I have considered a friend for thirty years, should be ashamed of himself for advocating this sort of Big Brother legislation. This is not the Tommy Thompson we knew as a four-term governor of Wisconsin. This is another conservative gone native.

Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation.

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ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.