can be extremely unclear. Witness the simultaneous presence, in many areas, of city police, county police, state police, and, at the national level, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), all coordinated, for some purposes, by the national Department of Homeland Security.
Even when a given responsibility lies at the state level, the national government frequently finds a way to enforce its will. For instance, it is up to the states to decide on the minimum drinking age for their citizens. In the 1970s, many states required people to be only eighteen or nineteen before they could legally buy alcohol; today all the states have a uniform drinking age of twenty-one. The change came about because interest groups persuaded officials in the federal—that is, national—government that the higher age would lead to fewer alcohol-related highway accidents and greater public safety. The federal government couldn’t pass a law setting a nationwide drinking age of twenty-one, but it could control the flow of highway money to the states. By withholding 5 percent of federal highway funds, which every state wants and needs, until a state raised the drinking age to twenty-one, Congress prevailed. This is an example of how the relations between levels of government work when neither level can directly force the other to do what it wants.
What Does the Constitution Say?
No single section of the Constitution deals with federalism. Instead, the provisions dividing power between the states and the national government appear throughout the Constitution. As a state matter, local government is not mentioned in the Constitution at all. Most of the Constitution is concerned with establishing the powers of the national government. Since Congress is the main lawmaking arm of the national government, many of the powers of the national government are the powers of Congress. The strongest statement of national power is a list of the enumerated powers of Congress (Article I, Section 8). This list is followed by a clause that gives Congress the power to make all laws that are “necessary and proper” to carry out its powers. The necessary and proper clause has been used to justify giving Congress many powers never mentioned in the Constitution. National power is also based on the supremacy clause of Article VI, which says that the Constitution and laws made in accordance with it are “the supreme law of the land.” This means that when national and state laws conflict, the national laws will be followed. The Constitution also sets limitations on the national government. Article I, Section 9, lists specific powers not granted to Congress, and the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) limits the power of the national government over individuals.
enumerated powers of Congress congressional powers specifically named in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8)
necessary and proper clause constitutional authorization for Congress to make any law required to carry out its powers
supremacy clause constitutional declaration (Article VI) that the Constitution and laws made under its provisions are the supreme law of the land
The Constitution says considerably less about the powers granted to the states. The Tenth Amendment says that all powers not given to the national government are reserved to the states, although the necessary and proper clause makes it difficult to see which powers are withheld from the national government. The states are given the power to approve the Constitution itself and any amendments to it. The Constitution also limits state powers. Article I, Section 10, denies the states certain powers, mostly the kinds that they possessed under the Articles of Confederation. The Fourteenth Amendment limits the power of the states over individual liberties, essentially a Bill of Rights that protects individuals from state action, since the first ten amendments apply only to the national government.
What these constitutional provisions mean is that the line between the national government and the state governments is not clearly drawn. We can see from Figure 3.1 that the Constitution designates specific powers as national, state, or concurrent. Concurrent powers are those that both levels of government may exercise. But the federal relationship is a good deal more complex than this chart would lead us to believe. The Supreme Court has become crucial to establishing the exact limits of provisions such as the necessary and proper clause, the supremacy clause, the Tenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment. This interpretation has changed over time, especially as historical demands have forced the Court to think about federalism in new ways.
concurrent powers powers that are shared by the federal and state governments
Figure 3.1 The Constitutional Division of Powers Between the National Government and the States
Two Views of Federalism
Political scientists have also changed the way they think about federalism. For many years the prevailing theory was known as dual federalism, basically arguing that the relationship between the two levels of government was like a layer cake. That is, the national and state governments were to be understood as two self-contained layers, each essentially separate from the other and carrying out its functions independently. In its own area of power, each level was supreme. Dual federalism reflects the formal distribution of powers in the Constitution, and perhaps it was an accurate portrayal of the judicial interpretation of the federal system for our first hundred years or so.
dual federalism the federal system under which the national and state governments are responsible for separate policy areas
But this theory was criticized for not describing realistically the way the federal relationship was evolving in the twentieth century. It certainly did not take into account the changes brought about by the New Deal. The layer cake image was replaced by a new bakery metaphor. According to the new theory of cooperative federalism, rather than being two distinct layers, the national and state levels were swirled together like the chocolate and vanilla batter in a marble cake.8 National and state powers were interdependent, and each level required the cooperation of the other to get things done. In fact, federalism came to be seen by political scientists as a partnership, but one in which the dominant partner was, more often than not, the national government.
cooperative federalism the federal system under which the national and state governments share responsibilities for most domestic policy areas
Who should have primary responsibility in case of emergencies or natural disasters: the local, state, or national government?
Possible Alternatives to Federalism
The federal system was not the only alternative available to our founders for organizing the relationship between the central government and the states. In fact, as we know, it wasn’t even their first choice as a framework for government. The Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution, handled the relationship quite differently. We can look at federalism as a compromise system that borrows some attributes from a unitary system and some from a confederal system. Had the founders chosen either of these alternatives, American government would look very different today.
Unitary Systems
In unitary systems, the central government ultimately has all the power. Local units (states or counties) may have some power at some time, but basically they are dependent on the central unit, which can alter or even abolish them. Many contemporary countries have unitary systems,
