Federalism Concepts and Impacts

Cooperative Federalism

• Respects jurisdictional boundaries between state and federal governments.
• Federal cooperation mitigates collective action problems amongst states.
• Federal assistance encourages positive externalities from state and local governments.
• Federal assistance ensures uniformity of public services across states.

New Federalism

• Decentralization of responsibility enhances administrative efficiency.
• President Nixon launched new federalism, continued by President Reagan.
• The Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Lopez advanced the logic of new federalism.

Unfunded Mandates

• New federalism does not promote the use of unfunded mandates.
• The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act prevents Congress from using unfunded mandates.
• The Clean Air Act is a type of federal partial preemptive regulation.
• Title VI of the Civil Rights Act establishes crosscutting requirements.

Federal Grants

• The amount of federal grant money has steadily increased since the 1960s.
• The federal government allocates the most grant money to income security.
• The majority of federal grants are block grants.
• Block grants gain more flexibility over time.

Benefits of Federalism

• Promotes political participation
• Provides multiple levels of government action
• Accommodates diversity of opinion
• Does not encourage economic equality across the country

Race-to-the-Bottom

• Has detrimental effects

Nullification

• If a state deems a federal law unconstitutional, it can nullify it within its borders.

Local Stations

• A local station that broadcasts national network programming is called an affiliate station.

Cable Programming

• Cable programming is often national.

Lobbying

• Interest groups lobby all branches of government (not just legislative).
• An in-house lobbyist is someone who lobbies on behalf of their employer as part of their job.
• Collective goods offer broadly distributed benefits, while private goods offer particularized benefits.
• Purposive incentives appeal to someone's concern about a cause.
• An astroturf movement resembles a grassroots movement but is often supported by wealthy interests or elites.
• There is more professional lobbying, more interests lobby at the state level, and a fragmentation of interests has taken place in the lobbying environment over the past 3-4 decades.
• Interest groups and political action committees are required to disclose contributions.
• PACs can contribute directly to candidates, but super PACs cannot.

The Presidency

• One man can respond to crises more quickly than a group, and it is easier to control the actions of one man than a group.

The Bill of Rights

• The Bill of Rights refers to the first ten amendments of the Constitution, which protect individual freedoms.

Constitutional Amendments

• Three-fourths of the states must ratify an amendment before it becomes law.

Federal and Unitary Systems

• In a federal system, the constitution allocates powers between states and federal government; in a unitary system, powers are lodged in the national government.

McCulloch v. Maryland

• The Supreme Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause.

Local and State Government Finance

• Between 30-40% of the revenue for local and state governments comes from grant money.
• Taxes generate well over one-half of the total revenue for local and state governments.

Merits of Cooperative Federalism

• No statement in the text provided a merit of cooperative federalism.