lecture 4: federalism concept of federalism federal vs unitary fed state concurrent powers
TRANSCRIPT
Lecture 4: Federalism
Concept of Federalism
• Federal vs Unitary
FedState
Concurrent powers
Division of powers
• What areas are exclusively federal responsibilities?
• coin money, wage war, regulate immigration and citizenship
• What areas are exclusively or mostly state responsibilities?
• establish local governments, ratify constitutional amendments, education
• What areas are concurrent?• Tax, borrow money, set up courts
Advantages of a decentralized federal system?
• Better reflects local or regional differences• example: minimum wage
• allows for experimentation• example: Oregon’s assisted suicide?
Disadvantages of federalism
• can inhibit trade and mobility• example: state tuition
• can promote a race to the bottom• example: lower state taxes, lax environmental laws
Gibbons v Ogden (1824)
• Facts of the case
• Result: Ct. interpreted “interstate commerce” broadly, giving greater power to Congress and the federal government.
Civil War
• Are states sovereign--with the right to join and leave the union as they please?
• Article I, section 10--”no confederacies”• “We the People”, not “we the states”
• Outcome of the War:
No!
Post Civil War Era
• Growth of big business and national economy
necessary action by fed govt: starting with regulating railroads, and monopolies
Great Depression and New Deal (1929-41)
• Works Project Administration
• Social Security
• and much more--eventually with USSC approval
• Wickard v Filburn (1942)
• digression--Raich v Gonzalez (2005)
Civil Rights and Integration (1954-74)
• Federal laws and federal troops integrating schools and public accommodations
• Heart of Atlanta Motel v United States (1964)
Great Society (1963-69)
• War On Poverty
• Medicare
• Medicaid
Reagan “revolution” and devolution
• Less “strings” on reduced federal funding for state programs--from categorical to block grants
- Example of “Welfare” reform in 1990s
• Conservative Supreme Ct reducing federal controls over states
- Examples:- US v Lopez (1995)
- US v Morrison (2000)
- but more mixed in Raich v Gonzalez (2005)