Chapter 3 History

Federalism

A system that divides power between the national and state governments 

Angel McClary Raich and Diane Monson

Medical marijuana in California was legal; at the federal level, it was illegal; argued it was protected due to state protections. 

Compassionate Use Act of 1996

Made California the first U.S. state to legalize medical cannabis. Medical Marijuana cultivation is legal if under the supervision of a licensed physician and in accordance with state regulations. Protects licensed physicians from state criminal penalties or professional sanctions for recommending marijuana to patients.

Controlled Substances Act of 1970

Made marijuana a Schedule I drug, meaning: High potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and a lack of accepted safety. It is in the same category as heroin, lsd, pcp, and ecstasy. 

Gonzales v. Raich 

Government vs. state law on medical marijuana; the government found that federal law prevails, and it was okay to confiscate weed, but this is really fuzzy (think legalization today)

Unitary Systems

A system where the central government has all the power over subnational governments 

Confederal Systems

subnational governments have most of the power. 

Federal systems

a system where power is divided between national and state governments 

Enumerated or Expressed Powers

Powers explicitly granted to the national government that are written in the Constitution. 

Exclusive Powers

Powers that are assigned solely to the federal government, the states, or specific branches of government. For example, there are federal, state, and branch-specific powers. Only Congress can coin money, and the states possess all the powers not given to the federal government.

Implied Powers

Implied powers are political and legal authorities not explicitly written in the U.S. Constitution but reasonably deduced as necessary to execute the government's expressed, enumerated powers. For example, Congress has the power to pass any law it deems necessary and proper thanks to the elastic–or necessary and proper–clause. The same goes for the judicial branch, as it has the implied power to interpret the Constitution.

Powers Denied

Constitutional limits and prohibitions that explicitly forbid the federal government, state governments, or both from exercising specific authorities. It refers to the powers that both parts of federalism, either all together or separately, do not possess. For example, ex post facto laws and bills of attainder.  

Commerce Clause

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: grants Congress the authority to regulate interstate business and commercial activity. 

Necessary and Proper Clause

Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: grants the government the authority to pass laws required to carry out its enumerated powers. 

Supremacy Clause

Article VI, Clause 2: establishes the Constitution and the laws of the federal government passed under its authority as the highest laws of the land. 

Tenth Amendment

Reserves powers not delegated to the national government to the states and the people; the basis of federalism. This grants states–or the people–substantial power.

United States v. Darby (1941)

Tenth Amendment was used to give states more power and limit federal government by stating government only has enumerated powers, and all else is reserved to the people - this case deemed this interpretation a truism, which is to say that it was not supposed to give the state and people power that supersedes those of the national government. 

Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985)

Involved whether or not the San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority had to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act in paying its workers. Supreme Court ruled that Congress could decide when to regulate activities by state and local governments. 

Reserved Powers

powers not given to the national government, which are retained by the states and the people. (basically the basis of the 10th Amendment restated)

Concurrent Powers

powers granted to both the federal government and the states, meaning powers they share, such as regulating highways.

Regional and Local Governments Rely on the States

Government doesn't describe powers below the state level, so state(s) control regional and local governments; they set rules and regulations, or can disband/get involved with local governments - in the view of federalism, there are only two levels of power: national and state.

Full Faith and Credit Clause

This requires states to recognize the public acts, records, and civil court proceedings from another state. This means that a couple married in Vermont is still married if they move to South Carolina. If you drive through a state, you will not need a new license. 

Extradition

Extradition is the requirement that officials in one state return a defendant to another state where a crime was allegedly committed.

Privileges and Immunities clause

This prevents states from discriminating against out-of-state residents.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819):

The case centered on the Second Bank of the United States, a national bank chartered by Congress, whose charter had been left to expire amid a debate about its constitutionality. Many questioned if Congress had the authority to charter a national bank. Several states, including Maryland, passed laws to tax the Second Bank of the United States. Maryland bank officials refused to pay the state tax, and the dispute went to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Can the U.S. government create a national bank? 

Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed Congress's right to establish the bank. He said it was a valid implied power of Congress, even though the Constitution does not explicitly grant the power to create a national bank.

Can the state(s) of Maryland tax this bank?

Marshall and the Court also ruled for the national government. Maryland and the other states did not have the authority to tax the bank’s state branches. They argued that the power to tax includes the power to destroy. The Court ruled that state governments have no right to tax any constitutional means the Government of the Union uses to execute its constitutional powers.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

The Marshall Court weighed in on Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause. It was a battle between two powerful steamboat businesspeople. The court struck down the steamboat monopoly between the two states and the part of the New York law that had made the monopoly possible. Marshall affirmed the exclusive authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

Thirteenth Amendment

abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as a punishment for a convicted crime.

Fourteenth Amendment

provides that persons born in the US are citizens and prohibits states from denying persons due process or equal protection under the law.

Fifteenth Amendment

Prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude. (This amendment only applied to males at the time)

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Landmark case in restricting the rights of African Americans. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of legalized segregation and states' ability to pass such laws. Began the Separate But Equal logic. 

Dual Federalism

State and national government operate independently in their own areas of public policy. 

Lochner v. New York (1905)

The state of New York tried to limit the working hours of bakers to 60 hours per week. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of bakery owner Joseph Lochner, declaring that the maximum-hours law was an unreasonable and arbitrary infringement on the liberty of employers and workers to negotiate labor agreements.

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

Began the process of selective incorporation, by which fundamental liberties in the Bill of Rights are applied to the states on a case-by-case basis. The Court ruled that freedom of speech and the press are fundamental liberties protected by the Due Process Clause from violations by the states. Over time, the Court applied the 14th Amendment to prevent states from taking away most of the liberties provided in the Bill of Rights.

Selective Incorporation

Supreme Court applies fundamental rights in the Bill of Rights to the states on a case-by-case basis.

Cooperative Federalism

States and national government work together to shape public policy 

The Great Depression and Changes in American Federalism

Increased the national government's power and changed the nature of federalism. Local governments needed a lot of help from the national government. 

Roosevelt Greatly Expanded the Role of the National Government

FDR brought the full power of the executive branch to the Great Depression. He knew the state governments did not have the resources to handle the urgent problems they faced. They couldn’t refuse the big sums of aid from the national government; in doing so, the states traded away some of their authority.

New Deal 

The New Deal expanded national power, especially Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. Cooperative federalism, in which both levels of government are involved in setting policy, replaced the earlier model of federalism.

Modern Programs Begin

Social Security Act of 1935 created a set of programs to support vulnerable groups of Americans. Established unemployment insurance for workers. Works Progress Administration(WPA): created to provide jobs for the thousands of people who were unemployed during the Great Depression.

Grants-in-Aid

federal money provided to states to implement public policy objectives

Fiscal Federalism

federal government's use of grants-in-aid to infleunec polices in the states

Categorical Grants

grants-in-aid provided to states with specific provisions for their use

Unfunded Mandates

Federal requirements that states must follow without being provided funding 

Advocates for Categorical Grants

The advocates emphasize that redistributing money between states can reduce inequality among states. Also, these funds can help state, local, and regional governments improve the lives of their citizens in ways that may not be possible without federal help. 

Examples: Head Start or Medicaid

Block Grants

a type of grant-in-aid that gives state officials more authority in the disbursement of federal funds

Ronald Reagan’s Efforts

Ronald Reagan’s "New Federalism" initiative significantly increased the use of block grants by consolidating dozens of narrow categorical programs into broader state-managed funds.

Revenue Sharing

when the federal government apportions tax money to the states with no strings attached 

Devolution

returning more authority to the state or local governments.

 Was the Gun-Free School Zones Act unconstitutional?

 It was unconstitutional because it was government overreach; the involvement that this involved commerce and connected to the Commerce Clause was a stretch and could be applied to almost anything 

McCulloch v. Maryland

Government has power over commerce; states cannot tax the government “Power to tax = power to destroy”

Government power reinforced, especially with commerce; supremacy. 

United States v. Lopez

Government cannot overreach; 10th Amendment limits legislation that can be passed - based on the Commerce Clause in part - increased state-level power

Loving v. Virginia (1967)

Supreme Court overturned a Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage. The Supreme Court ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law violated this clause because it drew distinctions based entirely on race, serving no legitimate purpose other than invidious racial discrimination. They utilized the Fourteenth Amendment.

Edith Windsor & Thea Spyer

When her wife died, Edith Windsor had to pay over $350,000 in taxes because the U.S. government did not recognize same-sex marriage. Even though New York accepted their marriage, federal law did not treat her like an opposite-sex widow. In response, Windsor sued the federal government to demand equal legal recognition.

Defense of Marriage Act

One section stated that, for federal purposes, marriage meant a legal union between a man and a woman. Another section reaffirmed the power of the states ot make their own decisions about marriage.

United States v. Windsor (2013) 

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the section of DOMA classifying only opposite sex marriages as legal under federal law was unconstitutional. 

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Winston's case inspired James Obergefell and John Arthur. After a decades-long commitment, Obergefell married Arthur on a tarmac in a Maryland airport. They lived in Ohio, and Ohio didn’t recognize same sex marriage. Arthur was struggling with ALS. Ohio law did not permit Obergefell to be listed as the surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. So he sued. In 2015, the Supreme Court affirmed the legality of their marriage and guaranteed all couples the right to marry in yet another 5-4 vote. 

Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

The issue was whether the power of the federal government to ban marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act superseded California’s legalization of medical marijuana. The Court sided with the federal government and Congress under the Commerce Clause and the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Today, it's very weird that it’s still federally illegal, yet many states have legalized it.