Federalism Limits: Tenth Amendment, Spending and Preemption: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Constitutional Law Topic 3, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
The declaration that powers not delegated to the United States nor denied to the states are reserved to the states or the people. Modern doctrine treats it mainly as a reminder that federal power must be enumerated, plus a source of the anticommandeering rule.
Anticommandeering doctrine
The rule that Congress may regulate private actors directly but may not order state legislatures to enact laws or state executive officers to administer a federal program.
New York v. United States
Struck the take-title provision of a radioactive waste statute because forcing a state either to regulate according to federal instructions or to take ownership of waste was impermissible coercion of the legislature.
Printz v. United States
Held that Congress could not require local sheriffs to conduct background checks on handgun purchasers, extending the anticommandeering rule from legislatures to state executive officials.
Murphy v. NCAA
Invalidated a federal statute forbidding states from authorizing sports wagering, holding that a command not to enact a law commandeers just as much as a command to enact one.
Reno v. Condon
Upheld a federal restriction on state sale of motor vehicle records, distinguishing commandeering because the law regulated states as owners of databases within a generally applicable regime, not as regulators.
Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority
Overruled an earlier attempt to immunize traditional state functions from federal wage laws, holding that the states' protection lies primarily in their representation in the national political process.
National League of Cities v. Usery
The 1976 decision briefly shielding integral state government functions from federal labor regulation. It proved unworkable and was overruled less than a decade later.
Spending power
The authority in Article I, Section 8 to spend for the general welfare. Congress uses conditional grants to influence state policy in fields it could not regulate directly.
South Dakota v. Dole
Upheld withholding a small percentage of highway funds from states with a drinking age below twenty-one and set out the conditions for valid spending conditions, including germaneness and unambiguous notice.
Germaneness requirement
The spending condition limit requiring that a condition relate to the federal interest in the particular national program being funded, so unrelated policy demands cannot ride along with the grant.
Clear statement rule for grant conditions
Because conditional spending resembles a contract, states must be given unambiguous notice of what a condition requires before they accept funds, and courts read ambiguities against the imposition of new duties.
Coercion limit on spending
The principle that financial inducement may not become compulsion. Threatening a state's entire existing program rather than a modest share of new funds crosses from persuasion into a gun to the head.
Medicaid expansion holding
The 2012 conclusion that conditioning all preexisting Medicaid funds on accepting an expanded program was unconstitutionally coercive, remedied by letting states decline the expansion without losing existing funds.
Preemption
The displacement of state law by federal law under the Supremacy Clause. Its forms include express preemption, field preemption, conflict preemption, and obstacle preemption.
Express preemption
Displacement stated in the federal statute itself. Courts still must interpret the scope of the preemption clause and often read it narrowly in fields of traditional state concern.
Field preemption
Displacement inferred when the federal scheme is so pervasive, or the federal interest so dominant, that no room remains for state supplementation, as with immigration status registration and nuclear safety.
Conflict preemption
Displacement when compliance with both federal and state law is impossible, as when federal law forbids what state law requires.
Obstacle preemption
Displacement when state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress, even though dual compliance is technically possible.
Presumption against preemption
The interpretive default that federal law does not supplant the historic police powers of the states unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress. Its force is weakest in fields with a long federal presence.
Arizona v. United States
Preempted several provisions of a state immigration enforcement law, holding that Congress had occupied the field of alien registration and that state penalties conflicted with federal enforcement discretion.
Intergovernmental immunity
The doctrine forbidding states from regulating or taxing the federal government directly or from discriminating against it and those with whom it deals.
Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV
Bars a state from discriminating against citizens of other states as to fundamental rights such as pursuing a livelihood, unless the state shows a substantial reason and a close fit. Corporations and aliens cannot invoke it.
Full Faith and Credit Clause
Requires each state to respect the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of other states. Its bite is strongest for final judgments and weaker for choice of law questions.
Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity
Bars most private damages suits against states in federal court, subject to state consent, valid abrogation under the Reconstruction Amendments, and suits against officers for prospective relief.