Where Federalism Didn’t Fail

Abstract

The governmental response to Hurricane Katrina was not the unalloyed failure that is often portrayed. The response was a mixture of success and failure. Successes occurred when a foundation had been laid for intergovernmental cooperation, as with the largely successful pre‐landfall evacuation of Greater New Orleans, the multistate mobilization of the National Guard, and the search and rescue operations of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Postmortems should draw lessons from such successes rather than concentrate entirely on the numerous failures. It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces—the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice. —President George W. Bush, September 15, 2005 I can say with certainty that federalizing emergency response to catastrophic events would be a disaster as bad as Hurricane Katrina. The current system works when everyone understands, accepts, and is willing to fulfill their responsibilities…. the bottom‐up approach yields the best results. —Florida governor Jeb Bush, October 19, 2005

Crisis Communication Post Katrina: What are we Learning?

“…One needs, also, to question the logic that reasons if the centralizing approach fails to work, then even more centralization is needed." This further move toward the "centralization impulse" flies in the face of much of the research and scholarship about crisis management and particularly Katrina (Derthick 2007;Garnett and Kouzmin 2007;Stivers 2007;Lester and Krejci 2007;Morris et al 2007). It remains to be seen whether transfer of functions to the "new" FEMA under the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 constitute centralization or decentralization.…”

“…Operating on the principle of what Derthick (2007) calls the "centralizing syndrome," national legislation since Katrina has strengthened centralization and threatened historical federalist relationships involving emergency management and national security. For example, a rider added to the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 amended the Insurrection Act of 1871 to expand presidential authority to use the armed forces for domestic purposes.…”

Texas takes on the TSA: The Constitutional Fight over Airport Security

“…Studies in this area have tended to center on what Scavo et al (2007) call "focusing" events like Hurricane Katrina (Derthick 2007) or the Deepwater Horizon disaster (Birkland and DeYoung 2011). These cases fit more Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 1:54 PM easily into established paradigms of federalism research, and illustrate famil iar concepts such as centralization and advocacy coalitions (Regan and Deering 2009).…”

“…Federalism is a useful starting point because, as Donald Kettl (2003: p. 263) points out, "Home land security is also, by its nature, one woven deeply into the fabric of US fed eralism, where it is impossible for any player to define objectives and measures authoritatively for the other players." Federalism scholars looking at homeland security issues have tended to focus on specific events, such as Hurricane Katrina (Derthick 2007) or the Deepwater Horizon disaster (Birkland and DeYoung 2011) as illustrative case studies. Our research adds to this literature by including an additional case of state/federal dissonance, but provides a legal analysis which illustrates the standing of both parties.…”

The Changing of the Guard: The National Guard's Role in American Politics

“…This initiative was undertaken without any need for approval or influence from the federal government. Search and rescue assets moved quickly to New Orleans, alleviating suffering and saving lives, demonstrating the flexibility of the federalist system (Derthick, 2007).…”