Some of the bills pending in local legislatures include one which might effectively legalize gay discrimination in Iowa; proclaiming climate change to be "beneficial" in Montana; and in one strange move, a push in Georgia to pay state debts exclusively with pre-1963 gold and silver coins.

In South Dakota, a bill sponsored by state representative Phil Jensen held that "homicide is justifiable" when the murder victim is a medical professional who carries out abortions.

On the national level, the agenda of resurgent Republicans since the November elections has been knocked off kilter on a number of occasions -- earlier this month, libertarian minded Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers sided with Democrats to knock down an extension of the Patriot Act.

The measure to provide boosted surveillance powers, designed to thwart extremist attacks, ultimately passed.

"We're in a new era," House Speaker John Boehner admitted at the time, however, somewhat ruefully.

On the local stage, the whims of the rightward edge of the Republican Party have been displayed in sharper terms -- in legislation that might otherwise be swiftly excised by party leaders if introduced to the national conversation.

In Congress "you're going to see measures being introduced that are probably as wacky or as extreme as those we're seeing in the state legislatures... The question is whether they go anywhere," Norman Ornstein, an expert on US politics at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, told AFP.

He noted, however, that while the biggest impact of the 2010 Republican surge was in the state houses, the party's Tea Party-affiliated wing has "opportunities to try pass things that are not going to have any real impact on voters, and may end up getting vetoed by governors, but it makes them feel better."

Vicki Saporta, president of National Abortion Federation, has decried the South Dakota bill in blunt terms, saying in a statement that the measure "is an invitation to murder abortion providers."

Jensen's bill would have amended a statue to allow for homicide to "provide for the protection of certain unborn children."

The measure faced a full floor vote after being approved nine-to-three in the state's House Judiciary Committee, but was later shelved in the wake of wider outrage.

In neighboring Montana, state legislator Joe Read introduced a bill earlier this month that proclaimed climate change to exist -- noticeably in contrast to a number of his Republican colleagues.

But he held that "global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana."

Without offering a more detailed explanation, the measure seeks to enshrine Montana's position on the issue as being that "reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment."

That bill is pending before the state legislature.

Analyst Ornstein noted that while "most of the bills that are being debated are not about to affect policy or people's lives in most cases -- what they do is, in the end, bring some degree of national ridicule upon the states where they are introduced."

And due to the less intense public attention focused on state politicians, compared to the federal level, he said there is "a greater chance of these things passing."

In Utah, civil liberty groups have cried foul for what they see as an attempt to legalize clear discrimination.

The "Religious Conscience Protection Act," introduced by state legislator Richard Anderson, would ensure a person's "sincerely held religious beliefs" would not be violated over same-sex marriage.

In that vein, it also attempted to legalize denying "goods or services... that facilitate the perpetuation of a marriage."

The bill, said Troy Price, political director of One Iowa, a state-focused gay rights group had been a "shameful and hurtful attack on the institution of marriage."

The measure, he added, would not have just affect couples in a same-sex relationship "but opens the door to discrimination against interracial and interfaith couples."

The bill has foundered since being voted down in a judiciary subcommittee on February 9, but Anderson told the Des Moines Register after the hearing that although some people have "issues" with the bill, "we just have to continue to work on it."

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