Federalism & States

Two models of how national and state governments share power: separate spheres, like a layer cake, or intertwined programs, like a marble cake

When federal law overrides state law, and the three ways it happens

How power is divided between the national government and the states, and how that balance has shifted

The Article IV requirement that each state respect the public acts, records, and court judgments of every other state

The authority of cities and counties to govern their own local affairs, granted by state constitutions and laws, as opposed to Dillon's Rule, and its special form in Washington, D.C.

Binding agreements between states, often approved by Congress, that create shared agencies and rules for rivers, ports, transit, licensing, and other cross-border matters

The theory that a state may declare a federal law unconstitutional and void within its borders, tested in the 1832 crisis and consistently rejected by the courts

The political and constitutional argument that states hold powers the federal government may not override, invoked across American history for very different causes

How courts have applied the Tenth Amendment, from a truism in 1941 to the anti-commandeering doctrine that today shapes sanctuary policies, sports betting, and federal programs

The inherent self-government of Native nations, the third sovereign in the American system

Federal requirements that state and local governments must carry out without federal money to pay for them, and the 1995 law meant to limit them