Why do people keep moving to Arizona? (Hint: It ain't the weather)
Americans might argue about mail-in ballots or how best to count them, but there’s one kind of voting that brings everyone on board: voting with your feet.
When citizens decide they’ve had enough with their state, they rent a moving van and head for the border. Pew Research Center has compiled a list of which states are up and down in “The Big Sort.”
Over the past year, the big losers are New York, Illinois and Louisiana, all dropping a bit less than 1% in population. The winners are Florida, Texas and Idaho, each growing by more than 1.5%.
Closer to home, California shed 0.29% and Arizona grew by 1.3%.
Red states are growing. Blue states aren't
Out of the three that lost the most residents by percentage, two are blue states and one has a divided government.
The top three in population gains are all red states. Very red states.
Granted, politics isn’t the only reason behind the big sort.
Most people would choose a beach on the Gulf of Mexico over a beach on Lake Michigan. But there’s better surfing in California than Idaho. Conservative policies are winning.
A recent “PBS NewsHour” report featured both sides of the sort.
One couple is overjoyed at the cultural change moving from Los Angeles to Boise. Another couple feels more at home in Denver than they did in the Texas Panhandle.
Lucky for us, the Constitution was designed for this outcome.
Schoolkids learn a lot about “checks and balances” in government. The founders created the executive, legislative and judicial branches to compete against each other, ensuring one didn’t lord power over another.
This is what checks and balances are for
Congress passes laws, the president signs or vetoes them. The president nominates Cabinet secretaries, and the Senate confirms or rejects them.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court keeps the other two on a short leash. At least in theory.
But the Constitution also created a lesser-known check and balance: the federal government versus each of the state governments. The District of Columbia was supposed to take care of only those issues that are national in character, such as international treaties, national defense, protecting civil rights and the like.
The states were supposed to handle everything else.
Connecticut can set up its own public education system, while Ohio tries their own version. Arizonans made it fast and easy to start a business and Californians tossed several speed bumps in an entrepreneur’s way.
California failed: Now they're moving to Arizona in droves
This system of federalism appreciates that top-down solutions from the Beltway might not work in places as different as West Virginia and Hawaii.
These days, the balance between the feds and the states is pretty lopsided.
Washington loves to vacuum up all the power it can and too few states push back. But striking differences remain between states.
States vary. We can vote with our feet
Florida, Texas and Wyoming have no income tax. California, New Jersey and New York have top rates set above 10%.
Little surprise to see the first three growing while the last three shrink. Politics isn’t the only reason people move, but it’s nice to have a few extra dollars in your wallet.
Let one state double its tax rate while another cuts theirs in half. Let Oregon create a bunch of red tape for companies and watch South Dakota throw it in the shredder.
And if a state seems too conservative or too progressive, businesses and citizens can vote with their feet.
Being a red state for the past dozen years, Arizona has benefitted from inward migration.
As the state trends purple, leaders in both parties need to protect the limited government policies that have strengthened our economy.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. On Twitter: @exjon.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona and other red states are growing. There's a reason for that
