There are generally two competing ideas on how centralized or localized our government should be. The "left" likes things centralized and the "right" prefers things are handled locally. If you have spent any time reading here, you may have surmised that I am to the right on most (if not all) issues. This one is no different.
When you move towards centralizing government, it means you are essentially placing more and more of the decision making power in the hands of a small group of folks at the top. When you localize government, you are diversifying and delegating that decision-making to the smaller local jurisdictions (i.e. city councils, county governments, school districts, etc.).
When the decision making is local, the average citizen has a great amount of input and the potential for impact on those decisions. Also, there are a whole lot more minds working on the problems and the solutions are locally based and specific for a community. When the decision making is centralized, there are only a handful of people making decisions who can't possibly spread themselves around to all of the citizens whose lives are affected by their decisions at the top. The biggest problem I see with this, though, is the idea that only a few folks hold the reigns for the whole population. That leaves an awful lot of power in those hands and creates a real risk for abuse and/or simply stupid ideas being thrust upon the common man.
It may seem like a good idea to let one or two key people who are known to be moral, honorable, intelligent, and magnanimous to come up with solutions to all of society's ills. After all, their decision making would be quality and therefore good. The problem is, that if you do centralize to these good folks, the power you have given them is huge and they can easily be replaced by folks who are not as good either personally or professionally. This is what I like to call "portable power." Once all of the decision-making power is bundled up to the central authority, and none of the messy local decision-making any longer encumbers the process, it becomes a real danger for the population that sits under that central authority. There could come a time when people of ill repute manage to seize that power and then all of the decisions for all of our lives will be made by these ill-equipped or ill-mannered new leaders.
So, when you hear people say that the state should be in charge of something through some new state office, be wary. One size does not fit all in Arizona's varied communities. But, more importantly, you will be at the mercy of the quality and the agenda of the person appointed to that state office. Today's appointment might be brilliant and good. The next replacement, however, could be a disaster. If the power is made portable through centralization, we would be at the mercy of the new power keepers in one swift shift of personnel. Portable power is dangerous. A bad local decision affects a few people. A bad statewide decision affects us all.
