President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats may be stymied in their drive for health care reform. But state lawmakers in at least three dozen states are pushing ahead with a series of measures aimed at pre-empting whatever might come out of Washington.

On the left, Democrats in the California Senate recently approved a measure to establish a state-run, single-payer health care system favored by liberals on Capitol Hill.

And on the right, conservatives in Virginia and other states are pushing legislation to stave off federal efforts to mandate that individuals secure insurance coverage or require businesses to provide it.

“Duly noted,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who has had issues with the health care bill now in Congress. “They would be better off actually spending time on real problems, like transportation.”

And Connolly’s skepticism is not uncommon in Washington, where Congress has its own issues to resolve and the president just announced another bipartisan summit to find common ground in an increasingly partisan fight.

“We have been cognizant of what happens at the state level,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a principal author of the House health care bill, predicting that Virginia and other states “would be pre-empted” from blocking congressional action.

Waxman’s home state of California got involved in the action last month, when the state Senate did something most liberals in Washington wanted to see Congress do: approve a program of health care for all that would be run by the government.

The bill would pool state and federal funds, along with the revenue from some form of a new payroll tax, to create the California Health System, which would provide coverage to every resident of the cash-strapped state.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwar­zenegger has already promised a veto. And if the legislation were to become law, Waxman predicts the California proposal, along with similar ones in other states, would upset seniors by using Medicare money to provide coverage to younger residents.

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But the fight over mandates presents a more fundamental — if still symbolic — challenge to the president’s push for sweeping reform.

Republican Scott Brown’s surprise win in the special Massachusetts Senate race has invigorated conservative critics of the House and Senate health care bills. For instance, in Kansas last week, a trio of state lawmakers introduced legislation that would make it unconstitutional to force residents to purchase insurance.

“The election of Scott Brown put more improbable states back into play,” said Christie Herrera, who is spearheading the states’ efforts for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works with state lawmakers to push initiatives that limit the scope of government.

“It definitely lit a fire,” she said.