Many of the ideas of New Federalism originated with Richard Nixon.[1]
As a policy theme, New Federalism typically involves the federal government providing block grants to the states to resolve a social issue. The federal government then monitors outcomes but provides broad discretion to the states for how the programs are implemented. Advocates of this approach sometimes cite a quotation from a dissent by Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann:
It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
The Supreme Court, in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), held that the federal government could outlaw the use of marijuana for medical purposes under the Commerce Clause even if the marijuana was never bought or sold, and never crossed state lines. Justice O'Connor dissented in Gonzalez,[2] beginning her opinion by citing United States v. Lopez, which she followed with a federalist reference to Justice Louis Brandeis's dissenting opinion in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann.
Education
Education has been controversial under New Federalism, but for different reasons. Almost all groups, state and federal, agree that a controlled education system is absolutely critical. The division, however, is that some believe that the education system should be nationally united (and therefore controlled by the federal government), while opponents believe that education should vary by state (and therefore be controlled by the state governments).
Some New Federalists, such as President Ronald Reagan, have flirted with the idea of abolishing the Department of Education, but the effort has been unsuccessful. During the Presidency of George W. Bush, the President and Congress cooperated to pass the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which required states to meet federal testing standards.[3]Utah was the first state to reject NCLB,[clarification needed] and the Attorney General of Connecticut sued the federal government for underfunding NCLB.[4]
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution delineates the national frame and constrains the powers of the federal government. The Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress ; the executive, consisting of the president and subordinate officers ; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. Article IV, Article V, and Article VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure subsequently used by the 13 states to ratify it. The Constitution of the United States is the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in force in the world.
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. It expresses the principle of federalism, also known as states' rights, by stating that the federal government has only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution, and that all other powers not forbidden to the states by the Constitution are reserved to each state, or to the people.
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution. The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the individual components of the Commerce Clause referred to under specific terms: the Foreign Commerce Clause, the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the Indian Commerce Clause.
Randy Evan Barnett is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is the director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.
In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess.
The Necessary and Proper Clause, also known as the Elastic Clause, is a clause in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that Article One of the U.S. Constitution did not give the United States Congress the power to abrogate the sovereign immunity of the states that is further protected under the Eleventh Amendment. Such abrogation is permitted where it is necessary to enforce the rights of citizens guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment as per Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer. The case also held that the doctrine of Ex parte Young, which allows state officials to be sued in their official capacity for prospective injunctive relief, was inapplicable under these circumstances, because any remedy was limited to the one that Congress had provided.
In the United States, federalism is the constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States. Since the founding of the country, and particularly with the end of the American Civil War, power shifted away from the states and toward the national government. The progression of federalism includes dual, cooperative, and new federalism.
Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Taxing and Spending Clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, grants the federal government of the United States its power of taxation. While authorizing Congress to levy taxes, this clause permits the levying of taxes for two purposes only: to pay the debts of the United States, and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Taken together, these purposes have traditionally been held to imply and to constitute the federal government's taxing and spending power.
Dual federalism, also known as layer-cake federalism or divided sovereignty, is a political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government. Dual federalism is defined in contrast to cooperative federalism, in which federal and state governments collaborate on policy.
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States.
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years. Rehnquist was an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and the 16th chief justice from 1986 until his death in 2005. Considered a staunch conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism, the Court, for the first time since the 1930s, struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.
Laboratories of democracy is a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann to describe how "a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." Brandeis was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that, under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Congress may criminalize the production and use of homegrown cannabis even if state law allows its use for medicinal purposes.
The constitutional law of the United States is the body of law governing the interpretation and implementation of the United States Constitution. The subject concerns the scope of power of the United States federal government compared to the individual states and the fundamental rights of individuals. The ultimate authority upon the interpretation of the Constitution and the constitutionality of statutes, state and federal, lies with the Supreme Court of the United States.
United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court that struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA) as it was outside of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It was the first case since 1937 in which the Court held that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress's power to enact most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), including a requirement for most Americans to pay a penalty for forgoing health insurance by 2014. The Acts represented a major set of changes to the American health care system that had been the subject of highly contentious debate, largely divided on political party lines.
The Taft Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1921 to 1930, when William Howard Taft served as Chief Justice of the United States. Taft succeeded Edward Douglass White as Chief Justice after the latter's death, and Taft served as Chief Justice until his resignation, at which point Charles Evans Hughes was nominated and confirmed as Taft's replacement. Taft was also the nation's 27th president (1909–13); he is the only person to serve as both President of the United States and Chief Justice.
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