New Federalism
Encyclopedia
New Federalism is a political philosophy of devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...

, or the transfer of certain powers from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 back to the states
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

. The primary objective of New Federalism, unlike that of the eighteenth-century political philosophy of Federalism
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...

, is the restoration to the states of some of the autonomy and power which they lost to the federal government as a consequence of President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

.

It relies upon a Federalist tradition
Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...

 dating back to the founding of the country, as well as the Tenth Amendment
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791...

.

As a policy theme, New Federalism typically involves the federal government providing block grant
Block grant
In a fiscal federal form of government, a block grant is a large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as to the way it is to be spent...

s 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
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...

 in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that due process prevented a state legislature from arbitrarily creating restrictions on new businesses only on the claim that their markets affected a public use.The New State Ice Company...

:
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.


From 1937 to 1995, the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 did not void a single Act of Congress for exceeding Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution
Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause is 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...

, instead holding that anything that could conceivably have even a slight impact on commerce was subject to federal regulation. It was thus seen as a (narrow) victory for federalism when the Rehnquist
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States...

 Court reined in federal regulatory power in United States v. Lopez
United States v. Lopez
United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.-Background:...

 (1995) and United States v. Morrison
United States v. Morrison
United States v. Morrison, is a United States Supreme Court decision which held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded congressional power under the Commerce Clause and under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.-...

 (2000).

The Supreme Court wavered, however, in Gonzales v. Raich
Gonzales v. Raich
Gonzales v. Raich , 545 U.S. 1 , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal...

 (2005), holding that the federal government could outlaw the use of marijuana for medical purposes under the Commerce Clause
Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause is 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...

 even if the marijuana was never bought or sold, and never crossed state lines. How broad a view of state autonomy the Court will take in future decisions remains unclear. (See Gonzales v. Oregon
Gonzales v. Oregon
Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the United States Attorney General could not enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against physicians who prescribed drugs, in compliance with Oregon state law, for the assisted suicide of...

)

Justice O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...

, dissenting in Gonzalez (transcript), began her opinion by citing United States v. Lopez, which she followed with a federalist reference to Justice Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...

's dissenting opinion in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that due process prevented a state legislature from arbitrarily creating restrictions on new businesses only on the claim that their markets affected a public use.The New State Ice Company...

.

1Definition — New Federalism: Federal/state relationship proposed by Reagan administration during the 1980s; hallmark is returning administrative powers to the state governments.

Related legislation

  • 1972 - State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act PL 92-512
  • 1995 - Unfunded Mandate Reform Act PL 104-4
  • 1996 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
    Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
    The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging...

     PL 104-193
  • 1971 - Legacy of parks
    Legacy of parks
    This 1970s New Federalism style program promoted by the Nixon administration turned federal land over to the states for historical, cultural and recreational purposes.In 1972, the U.S...


Sources

1American Government continuity and change. Connor, Karen O' and Larry J. Sabato. New York: Pearson Longman. 2008.
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