Legal Commentary

Obama Takes On Preemption of State Law

By TChris

And now for some good news:

The Obama White House on Wednesday undid a Bush administration policy that used federal health and safety regulations to limit the ability of injured consumers to sue companies in state courts.

This will irritate the Chamber of Commerce types who have no interest in "states' rights" when those rights include a consumer's right to sue businesses under state law. Business interests persuaded the Bush administration (and have often persuaded federal courts) that state law should be preempted by federal law to spare businesses the burden of complying with 50 different standards of liability. Of course, businesses aren't forced to do business in 50 different states, and it hardly seems unfair that they be subjected to the laws of those states in which they choose to do business.

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In the past eight years, federal agencies pre-empted laws across a wide range of areas -- health, safety and environmental regulations as well as financial and consumer protections.

"We're saying no more of that approach," said Kenneth Baer, communications director at the White House Office of Management and Budget. "We're going back to making it clearer and more orderly and more defensible under the law."

In a memo to government department heads, Obama said that pre-emption of state law should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the states.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).