Chapter 6: Federalism
CLEP American Government, Chapter 6
Federalism
A state licenses a business under its health and safety laws. Congress later establishes a national rule for products moving across state lines, and the two requirements conflict. Which rule controls? Change the facts: Congress offers the state money if it adopts a national program. May the state decline? Change them again: Congress orders state officers to administer a federal program. Each dispute involves national and state governments, but each presents a different constitutional question.
Delegated, expressed, implied, inherent, reserved, and concurrent powers
Expressed powers appear in constitutional text; implied powers are appropriate means for executing granted authority; inherent powers arise from national sovereignty; reserved powers remain with states; concurrent powers are exercised by both levels.
Supremacy Clause
The Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties are supreme over conflicting state law. The qualifying phrase matters: supremacy does not validate an action Congress lacked power to take.
Necessary and Proper Clause
In federalism, the Necessary and Proper Clause permits Congress to choose appropriate means for executing enumerated powers, potentially affecting state authority. Under McCulloch, the end must be legitimate and the means plainly adapted to it and constitutionally permissible; the clause is not a general police power.
Commerce Clause
Congress may regulate commerce among states, with foreign nations, and with tribes. The power reaches many interstate economic activities but does not create a general federal police power.
Full Faith and Credit Clause
States must give full faith and credit to other states' public acts, records, and judicial proceedings. Final judgments generally receive especially strong recognition, while choice-of-law doctrine leaves states more room when competing statutes or policies govern a new dispute. Congress may prescribe how such acts and records are proved and their effect.
Privileges and Immunities Clause
Article IV protects citizens of one state against certain discrimination by another concerning fundamental economic and civil activities. It is distinct from the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause.
Dual federalism
Dual federalism imagines relatively distinct national and state spheres, often described as layer-cake federalism. It dominated many nineteenth-century accounts but never eliminated overlap entirely.
Cooperative federalism
Cooperative federalism joins national funding or standards with state administration, producing shared programs and bargaining. It is often described as marble-cake federalism.
Fiscal federalism
Fiscal federalism studies how taxing, spending, grants, and mandates shape relations among levels of government. National money can influence state priorities even when states administer programs.
Grants-in-aid
Grants-in-aid transfer federal funds to state or local governments for public purposes. Conditions attached to funds can coordinate national goals while preserving subnational administration.
Categorical grants
Categorical grants fund narrowly specified purposes and commonly include detailed eligibility, matching, reporting, or administrative conditions. They give states less discretion than block grants.
Block grants
Block grants consolidate funding for broad policy areas and usually allow states more discretion over program design. Greater flexibility may be accompanied by less national uniformity or declining real funding.
Unfunded mandates
An unfunded mandate requires state, local, or private action without providing enough federal funds for compliance. It shifts implementation costs and can provoke federalism conflict.
Devolution
Devolution transfers responsibility or discretion from the national government toward states or localities. It can increase experimentation and local control while creating interstate variation in benefits and capacity.
Intergovernmental relations
Intergovernmental relations include bargaining, administration, funding, litigation, and information exchange among national, state, and local governments. They are the operating reality behind formal federalism.
Conflicts between national and state authority
Federal-state conflict is resolved through enumerated powers, supremacy, preemption, anti-commandeering, spending conditions, and rights doctrine. The answer depends on the particular power and form of federal action.
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