Norton’s ’96 Speech on States’ Rights Assailed

In a 1996 speech to a conservative group, Interior secretary-designate Gail A. Norton likened her struggle to preserve states’ rights to the cause of the Confederacy, saying “we lost too much” when the South was defeated in the Civil War.

Norton, then Colorado’s attorney general, described slavery as the kind of “bad facts” that can undermine an otherwise powerful legal case. She made the speech to the Independence Institute, a conservative think tank in Denver on whose board of directors she has served.

Norton did not endorse slavery but rather used the comparison to the Confederacy to make a more fundamental point endorsed by a number of conservative legal activists and scholars about the importance of states’ rights against the federal government. Norton spoke of receiving from Washington what she considered to be intrusive orders as a state attorney general.

In the situation of the Confederacy, “we certainly had bad facts in that case where we were defending state sovereignty by defending slavery,” she said in the speech. “But we lost too much. We lost the idea that the states were to stand against the federal government gaining too much power over our lives.”

As Interior secretary, Norton would have significant power to decide how assertive the department should be in requiring states to comply with federal environmental laws and rules governing mining, drilling and grazing leases.

Norton’s comments drew fire from two environmental groups that unearthed her speech. They said it indicated a lack of sensitivity to the horror of slavery and represented a troubling view of the role of the federal government in protecting the environment.

“Her deeply divisive remarks suggest she lacks a vital instinct to protect what needs protecting, whether it’s wilderness or the rights of people of color,” said Kenneth A. Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, an activist research organization.

Her remarks were uncovered by Cook and Doug Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, which defends local governments in property rights cases.

Norton, through a spokesman for the transition of President-elect George W. Bush, declined comment. Norton’s longtime chief deputy at the attorney general’s office, Marti Allbright, said Norton was not expressing nostalgia for slavery or advocating secession.

In the speech, Norton also recalled she considered filing suit as attorney general against federal requirements under the Americans With Disabilities Act that a renovation of the Colorado statehouse include a wheelchair ramp. She called it “a really ugly addition to the state Capitol.”

Norton did not act against rules imposed by the ADA, which former President Bush has described as one of his proudest achievements.