Two decades ago, then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer reawakened New York's Martin Act, a somnolent Blue Sky Law with only occasional vigor in real estate transactions.

This drowsy little law has since become a terrific force in the hands of prosecutors, with defendants ranging from blatant boiler room fraudsters to Exxon Mobil, one of America's preeminent corporations.

Almost simultaneously came a chorus of complaints that the resurgent law would balkanize securities law enforcement that Congress has sought to regulate solely at the federal level, to create uniformity that could never be achieved if each state was left to its own approaches.