DRUNK ON POWER

THE U.S. Senate's vote to crack down on drunken driving shows once again
that most politicians can resist anything except temptation.

The Senate on Wednesday couldn't resist expanding its power and jumping on
a bandwagon. The objection that there was no particular reason for the
Senate to get involved in this issue was swept aside. Maybe the House of
Representatives will be more disciplined.

In the Senate, 36 Democrats and 26 Republicans decided that they knew
better than 35 state legislatures how much alcohol drivers should be
allowed to have in their blood. Fifteen states, including California, set
the level at 0.08 percent. They're right, said the Senate.

Thirty-five states permit up to 0.10 percent. If they don't adopt 0.08,
said the Senate, they should forfeit first 5 percent, then 10 percent of
their federal highway funds.

One of the sponsoring senators, Ohio Republican Mike DeWine, argued that it
is senseless for a driver to be considered legally drunk in one state but
not in another.

Why exactly is that senseless? Many regulations vary slightly from state to
state.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration,
dropping the limit from 0.10 to 0.08 reduces from five to four the number
of beers a 170-pound man could drink in an hour and be within the limit.

(For the record, the beverage industry says the limit will be reached on a
couple of drinks; and this editorial page is certainly not recommending a
four-beers-for-the-road policy.)

If the NHTSA is right, this is a debate about whether four beers or five
after work is the appropriate limit. There's nothing wrong with that
debate. There's nothing wrong with answering ``four'' as California did.
And there's nothing that requires one answer nationwide.

In many instances, the federal government ought to supersede the states.
States' rights earned a bad name in the 1950s and '60s when they were
invoked in the service of prohibiting blacks from voting. When it comes to
fundamental American rights, the states shouldn't get to be laboratories of
experimentation.

In other instances, national standards are necessary because state
standards would be insufficient. Clean air standards are federal because
pollution from Ohio River Valley power plants dirties the air in New
England.

But Washington is continually tempted to set standards for which national
uniformity is not necessary or even desirable.

Washington wants to tell schools what their suspension and expulsion
policies on drugs and weapons should be, as if schools were indifferent to
this problem and as if the policy ought to be the same in San Jose and Salt
Lake City.

Washington wants to tell states how strict to be on juvenile crime, as if
states otherwise would ignore delinquents.

The charitable explanation is that when a politician believes in a policy,
and has the power to impose it, it's tough to pass up the opportunity. The
uncharitable explanation is power grabbing and posturing.

Technically, the Senate is respecting states' rights. It can't mandate that
they change their law. Instead it's blackmailing them into doing it. The
highway funding system leaves states dependent on federal dollars.

The proposed one-drink reduction was greeted with much jubilation by the
prevailing senators. ``Happy hour for drunk drivers is over,'' said Sen.
Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Actually this was happy hour in the Senate, in
which senators got a free feel-good vote on the house.