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.

Explore the key concepts of Cooperative Federalism, New Federalism, and the implications of Unfunded Mandates. This quiz covers major federal grant policies and their effects on state and local governance. Test your knowledge on how federal and state governments interact and the importance of funding in federalism.