American Democracy in Context. Joseph A. Pika

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СКАЧАТЬ and the Republican Congress limited the ability of the federal government to impose unfunded mandates on states, reformed the federal welfare system, and abolished federally imposed speed limits.

      Appointments to the Supreme Court by Republican presidents starting with Nixon also had an effect on Supreme Court rulings dealing with federalism. In 1995, for the first time since 1936, the Court struck down a piece of legislation on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its commerce clause power. In U.S. v. Lopez, a 5–4 majority invalidated the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990, in which Congress banned guns from “school zones”: the grounds of a public, parochial, or private elementary or secondary school and the area within 1,000 feet of those grounds. Congress used its commerce clause power to do this; specifically, it prohibited any firearm in these zones “that has moved in or affects interstate or foreign commerce.” The Court majority, however, concluded that regulating guns fell under states’ police powers. Several subsequent rulings have extended this shift back toward states’ rights—a trend that is likely to continue as a result of President Donald Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court.

      Federalism in the Twenty-First Century

      Issues of federalism have been at the forefront of several important policy debates in the twenty-first century. Same-sex marriage proved to be the hot-button issue at the start of the century. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriage in 2004. Other states followed suit, prompting some states to pass constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage or civil unions. With public support for same-sex marriage steadily growing, the Supreme Court invalidated such amendments in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. By May 2018, a Gallup poll found 67 percent approval of same-sex marriage (roughly the same percentage that opposed it in 1996; see Figure 3.3).⁴⁸

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      Figure 3.3 Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage 1996–2018

      How has public opinion about same-sex marriage changed since the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell?

      Source: “Two in Three Americans Support Same-Sex Marriage” Gallup, May 23, 2018, https://news.gallup.com/poll/234866/two-three-americans-support-sex-marriage.aspx

      Health care reform quickly became another contentious issue. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which President Obama signed into law in March 2010, required states to expand Medicaid coverage to all adults with an income up to 138% of the federal poverty level. States that failed to comply would lose all preexisting federal Medicaid funds. Prior to the law, the federal government only required states to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income children, pregnant women, parents of dependent children, people with disabilities, and qualifying individuals over 65.

      block grants Funds from the national government to state and local governments that are earmarked for some general policy area, such as education, while giving the recipients flexibility to spend those funds within that policy area as they see fit.

      The ACA initially provided full federal funding to support the expansion. Over time, however, federal funding would gradually decrease to 90% under the assumption that increased Medicaid funding would eventually pay for itself by reducing hospital costs for uncompensated care and by stimulating the economy through the influx of federal funds to the states (including new jobs associated with Medicaid expansion and tax revenue generated from health care providers).⁴⁹ But several states sued the federal government over the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, arguing that compulsory Medicaid expansion violated states’ rights and foisted an unacceptable financial burden on them.⁵⁰

      In this instance, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states, concluding that they must be allowed to opt out of the Medicaid expansion requirement without losing their preexisting Medicaid funding. Although the Court, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), did uphold the rest of the ACA—including its controversial “individual mandate” (requiring individuals, with a few exceptions, to purchase health insurance)—the Court’s holding on the Medicaid provision undermined the ACA’s goal of expanding health insurance coverage for low-income individuals. As of 2018, 35 states plus the District of Columbia had expanded Medicaid, but 14 had not.⁵¹

      Similar disputes arose over another Obama administration policy, the Clean Power Plan, which required states to submit plans for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Under the policy, states that failed to develop their own plan would be compelled to comply with a plan imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2016, the Supreme Court, by a 5–4 vote, ordered the EPA to halt enforcement of the plan until a lower federal court had ruled on it. Before the lower court had an opportunity to do so, President Trump, who took office in January 2017, began efforts to scrap the Clean Air Plan, paving the way for litigation from progressive states and environmental groups who argued that Trump’s alternative rules fall short of EPA standards mandated by the Clean Power Plan.⁵²

      With Trump as president, progressives and even some Republicans began to embrace other aspects of states’ rights to counter Trump administration policies. This included the use of sanctuary cities discussed at the beginning of the chapter as well as opposition to President Trump’s plan to allow oil and gas drilling off of most of the nation’s coastline. Coastal states quickly proposed legislation to enact local bans on such drilling, paving the way for legal confrontations between states and the federal government.⁵³ Similar opposition arose in some quarters to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s January 2018 decision to rescind the Obama-era policy that the Justice Department not prosecute marijuana-related offenses under the federal Controlled Substances Act in states that had legalized the use of marijuana in some form. Despite the Attorney General’s move, President Trump indicated that he might be willing to sign bipartisan legislation allowing states to determine their own marijuana policies. By June 2019, 11 states plus the District of Columbia had legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults over the age of 21, while an additional 22 states have legalized marijuana for medical use (see Figure 3.4).⁵⁴ Still, the threat remained that the government could enforce the Controlled Substances Act through federal prosecutions for such use. In 2018, Canada became the first major world economy to fully decriminalize the sale and possession of marijuana for recreational use (the medicinal use of marijuana had been legal there since 2001).⁵⁵

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      Figure 3.4 Marijuana Legalization as of June 2019

      Source: Dan Bilefsky, “Legalizing Recreational Marijuana, Canada Begins a National Experiment,” The New York Times, October 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/canada/marijuana-pot-cannabis-legalization.html

      Consequences for Democracy

      Most people do not initially think that federalism will be the most engaging topic they will cover when studying American government. They may even think of it as boring, but first impressions can be deceiving. After all, federalism was one of the most contentious issues, if not the most contentious issue, from the Constitutional Convention through most of the 1800s. Debates about national supremacy versus states’ rights permeated the Constitutional Convention, influenced the development СКАЧАТЬ