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"We're begging the feds to sue us," said Sen. Frank Antenori, a Tucson Republican and author of a bill that would make Arizona-manufactured light bulbs free from federal regulation.

"It was the 13 colonies that came together to form the federal government, and the federal government is not our master, yet they are becoming by fiat our master. And we are pushing back and saying 'no'," [Chuck Gray] said.

The goal of today's movement is "not to preserve states' rights for its own sake, but to preserve individual liberty," he said.

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Arizona lawmakers displayed a lot of anger and frustration with the federal government this year, and now, after passing new laws meant to defy the feds on several fronts, the state is bracing for court battles that will define the limits of state authority.

Republican lawmakers said they were trying to put an end to federal intrusion by passing laws that assert the state's rights to regulate weapons, to control the level of government health care, to regulate carbon emissions and, oddly, to manufacture any kind of light bulbs the state chooses.

Now, it's up to the federal government to retaliate and go to court, which some Republican lawmakers said was the whole point from the start.

"We're begging the feds to sue us," said Sen. Frank Antenori, a Tucson Republican and author of a bill that would make Arizona-manufactured light bulbs free from federal regulation.

Arizona's defiance is part of a larger movement across the nation by states unhappy with what they see is the federal government's broadside attacks on their rights.

Critics, however, argued that these measures are frivolous and reflect a backward mindset. They said the federal government is taking the country in the right direction by creating new energy policies, extending health care to people who otherwise would go without it, and regulating the sale and manufacturing of guns.

Taking on the government over things such as light bulbs makes the state look ridiculous, said Sen. Paula Aboud, a Democrat from Tucson.

"Arizona looks like it is 1800s-stupid," she said.

The movement by states to push back against federal power is not unique in the country's history. But the size and scope of this movement, and the fierceness of the resistance to federal actions, are relatively new, according to Michael Boldin, founder of the California-based Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates for nullification of several federal laws by states.

Arizona illustrates exactly what Boldin was talking about. The state has always been among the first to assert a buck-the-feds attitude. But that noise was amplified this year by the sheer number of states' rights measures and resolutions demanding that Washington, D.C. stop enacting certain laws.

At least two measures were filed in the Legislature this year that are meant to challenge the feds on the U.S. Constitution's interstate commerce clause, which the feds have used in the past to justify laws that some thought did not really deal with interstate matters.

Gov. Jan Brewer has already signed one of them, H2307, which exempts from federal regulation firearms that have been manufactured in Arizona and have remained within the state's boundaries.

"The idea behind it -- and firearms are only the vehicle -- (is that) many of us believe the federal government has taken a too broad of a look at the commerce clause," said Rep. Nancy McLain, a Republican from Bullhead City.

The other bill, Antenori's H2337, says that light bulbs manufactured in Arizona and not exported to other states are not part of interstate commerce and therefore not subject to federal regulations. By a vote of 18-12, the Senate sent it to the governor on April 28.

That's not all.

In March, the Legislature gave the governor the power to sue the federal government over the recently enacted health care legislation.

And last year, the Legislature also sent to the ballot a proposal to amend the Arizona Constitution to say no law shall compel anybody to participate in any health care system, a direct response to the federal health care legislation, which was eventually passed this year.

Arizonans will vote on that ballot measure this November.

The Legislature's decision to enact S1070 -- regarded as the nation's strictest state-level immigration law -- and its efforts to try to nullify the federal health care law are simply the popular expressions of an effort that began a few years ago, Boldin said.

Arizona joined other states two years ago against the Real ID Act of 2005, which created new standards for driver's licenses in an effort to bolster security at airports and federal facilities.

"It's far bigger than that," Boldin told the Arizona Capitol Times.

Political observers like Boldin traced the growth of this movement to the George W. Bush administration.

"The biggest reactions to federal power came from responses to heavy-handed actions from the Bush administration, and now we see a lot of the Bush policies continuing under Obama," he said.

Boldin cited the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and Real ID as among laws that tend to encroach on states' rights and tend to concentrate power in the hands of the federal government.

Others pointed to the Wall Street bailout in 2008, when people, bewildered at what the federal government did, started asking whether it had the authority to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to save private financial institutions.

Arizona Senate Majority Leader Chuck Gray, who sponsored several 10th Amendment-type measures and resolutions this year, said the frustration with the feds has been building up even under Republican presidents.

Gray's litany of complaints is long, and it includes what he views to be burdensome regulations being imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on states.

"But I think that it has come to a head more so on this particular administration," he said.

For Gray, the most egregious federal intrusion is the health care law, which requires everyone to have health insurance under the threat of a penalty.

The argument fueling the movement is mostly rooted in the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people.

States' rights advocates also say the movement is nonpartisan. They say they oppose any overreaching federal policies no matter which party is in power in Washington D.C.

They also sought to dissociate the current movement from its racist version in Jim Crow's South.

Nick Dranias, a constitutional lawyer for the conservative think tank Goldwater Institute, said the states' rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s was largely bound up with racism, which he said was despicable because it allowed states to abuse minority groups.

Dranias said people have abandoned much of the racism that marked that era and have started to explore the real purpose of state sovereignty, which is to check and balance the feds.

The goal of today's movement is "not to preserve states' rights for its own sake, but to preserve individual liberty," he said.

That's the core of the argument that the Goldwater Institute used when it filed an opinion in a lawsuit initiated by a Montana gun sports association last year.

Montana in 2009 was the first state to enact a law that exempts from federal regulation guns made and sold within that state. The federal government subsequently sent out a letter saying despite the Montana law, gun companies must continue to comply with federal rules. The feds' message was unequivocal: Federal laws supersede state laws.

The Montana Shooting Sports Association sued, arguing that the U.S. Constitution doesn't confer powers on Congress to regulate activities contemplated by the Montana law. The case is pending in Federal District Court.

In its brief, the Goldwater Institute argued that the case "does not involve a mere clash between state and federal law. It involves the federal government's effort to quash an exercise of state sovereignty that directly serves the structural purpose of federalism in our compound republic -- the protection of individual liberty guaranteed by the Bill of Rights."

Indeed, states across the country have enacted laws this year seeking to assert their rights. South Dakota and Wyoming also passed gun-manufacturing laws that would be free from federal regulation. Utah passed a measure saying the federal government could not carry out health care reform in the state without legislative approval. And several other states are considering bills that would give state control over National Guard troops.

Senate Minority Leader Jorge Garcia, a Democrat from Tucson, said Arizona's decision to invite lawsuits with the federal government was a bad move, no matter the outcome of the Montana case or the ones that are brewing in Arizona.

"For folks who hate frivolous lawsuits -- this to me is more frivolous than anything else," he said.