Washington ? Traditionally the champions of small government and states’ rights, President Bush and his allies in Congress have aggressively pursued policies that expand the powers of Washington in the schoolroom, the courthouse, the home and the doctor’s office.

Sometimes over the objections of states — and often at the behest of business — Republicans have passed or are promoting legislation and regulations that make Washington the final arbiter on environmental standards, class-action lawsuits, medical malpractice cases and Internet taxes.

The extent to which this administration has subordinated states’ rights in carrying out its political agenda is “somewhat breathtaking,” said Michael Greve, who heads the Federalism Project at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Federal power has always been associated with Democrats, creators of the New Deal and supporters of the 1937 Supreme Court decision that gave Congress, with its authority to regulate interstate commerce, wide berth in entering areas that normally are the prerogative of states.

When Newt Gingrich led Republicans to a majority in the House in 1995, he stressed that “we are committed to getting power back to the states, we are committed to breaking out of the logjam of federal bureaucrats controlling how we try to help the poor.”

But Gingrich’s commitments often came with a catch requiring states to fall in line with federal policy: Some of the money available under the massive 1996 welfare law, for instance, was tied to states starting abstinence-only education programs, and states seeking money for new prisons under a big crime bill had to show that criminals were serving 85 percent of their sentences.

George W. Bush, the former governor of Texas, ran as a strong states’ rights advocate until the Florida election dispute, when it was Al Gore arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Florida state supreme court should have the final say on a recount. Bush insisted that the highest federal court step in.

Bush has since significantly increased the federal government’s reach with two of his biggest legislative achievements.

The No Child Left Behind education act inserts federal testing requirements and progress reports in an area that has always been under state and local control. The Patriot Act, a result of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has given federal law enforcement greater authority to supersede states where necessary in investigations and prosecutions of criminal activity.

The education act, Greve said, was “really a big, big marker in many ways, and a big, big turnaround.”

David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, which advocates limited government and individual liberties, said there were inevitable tensions when conservatives tried to use federal power to override the actions of more liberal state governments.

But he said there’s also been a “hubristic” streak in the Bush administration, “an attitude that we know what the policy should be, for instance, for accountability in schools.”