BOISE, Idaho  Standing up for states’ rights has not been easy this spring, even as many state lawmakers wince at the extended reach of the federal government. With the recession sparing few corners of the country, the $787 billion federal stimulus package has weakened the resolve of states’ rights activists in legislatures across the country.

“They lay the bait out, and we come take it,” said Monty Pearce, a Republican state senator who sponsored a sovereignty resolution that passed the Idaho Legislature. “Then we whine that we’ve taken it.”

Sure enough. When legislatures convened this year, lawmakers in more than 30 states set out to send Washington a blunt message: back off. Frustrated by federal policies like the bank bailout and rules allowing wolves to prowl the West, they drafted so-called sovereignty resolutions, aggressive interpretations of states’ rights outlined in the Tenth Amendment.

Acting independently (though sometimes cribbing a whereas or two from the Web), the lawmakers shared the same broad goal: to symbolically push back against Congress and the White House in a power struggle as old as the Republic.