 federalism. Okay, let's start off with a basic question. What is federalism? According to your textbook, federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between a national or central government and subnational units, states, provinces, or regional governments. Okay, so what this means is that you have two sets of governments who both share power. In the United States we have the power of the government that is shared between the federal government, the national government, Washington DC, made up of the president, Congress, the courts, and on one side, and then on the other side you have the state and local governments that also have their own power or what we call sovereignty. Sovereignty means the ability to govern yourself. So here in the United States we have a two-level system of government where both governments, both sets of governments, the federal government, and the state and local governments both have the ability to govern themselves. The federal government can pass laws through Congress, through the courts, the president can issue rules and executive orders that apply to the entire United States. The state governments, New York State, for example, also can pass laws through its legislature in Albany that apply to the people who live here in New York, you and me. And at the same time at the local level we've got the New York City Council which can also pass laws that apply to the people who live in New York City. Okay, so you have different levels of government, each with their own power operating together and sharing power. That's what federalism means. And we talked a little bit about federalism and the Constitution in the last lecture. In this lecture we're going to talk about federalism more deeply and more detail. Okay, so that's basically what federalism means, a system of government in which power is divided between a national or central government and sub-national states, provinces, or regional governments. Okay, the United States is a little bit different than most countries because most nations in the world today have a unitary system of government. And a unitary system of government is where you only have one level of government that controls the entire nation. You don't have separate levels of government like you do here in the United States. One good example of a unitary government is the government of China. So China has one government, a central government, and that central government makes all the decisions, all the laws for all the people who live in China. Chinese local areas in China, cities, towns, villages, they don't have their own system of government. They don't have their ability to make local laws that apply just for them. Everything, all laws that are made in China are made by one central government that applies to everybody. And so as we'll see when we go forward here, that system has both pros and cons. There are good things about having a federal system, but there are negative things about the federal system as well. So the United States doesn't have a unitary system of government like China. The United States has a federal system of government where power is shared between the national state and local governments. So in our last lecture, I talked about the evolution of government in the United States and how we've had two systems of government, two separate types of government in the United States since its founding, since the American Revolution. The first system of government in the United States was called the Articles of Confederation, which as I said in my last lecture created the type of government we call a confederation where you have a sharing of power between a national and state governments. But in a confederation, the state governments have more power. So between 1781, a couple years before the end of the American Revolution, up until 1788, the United States had a confederation type of government where the state governments had more power than the national government. Since 1788, we've lived under the present Constitution when we have now and that creates a federal government where the national government has more power than the state and local governments. So even though New York State and New York City can pass laws, even though they can make certain decisions for themselves and for the people who live here in New York State and New York City, the national government has far more power today than the state and local governments. American federalism is designed to do three basic things. First, federalism is designed to create a system of checks and balances by dividing power between the central and state and local governments. And that idea of a balanced power is designed to make sure that the power of government does not get so big and so large that it can intrude on and take away the rights of we the people. And so that's something you might remember I talked about in the first lecture and it's something that your textbook defines as the power problem, the constant problem of balancing the power of the government and the rights of the people, making sure that the government is powerful enough to do the things that we wanted to do, primarily keep us safe and keep order and prevent chaos, but also that it's not too powerful that our rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press do not get taken away from us by the government. And so one of the main ways that the founding fathers created the constitution in a way that would prevent that problem of the government becoming too big from happening is by creating the system of checks and balances by dividing power between the central and state and local governments. So as we talked about in the last lecture there's also a check and balance system within the national government between three branches of government, the executive, led, slave, and judicial. So there are actually two types of checks and balances that work here, one between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, but also there's a checks and balances system between the national government and state and local governments so that the national government cannot intrude upon the rights of the people because we have the people in state and localities also have our own governments that can make power make rules and laws and and hold on to some of our power so that too much power is not residing in the national government. So the first three things that the that American federalism is designed to do is create a system of checks and balances by dividing power between the central and state and local governments. The second thing that that American federalism is designed to do and this is a very important aspect of federalism is that it's designed to disperse democratic power by allowing interests to be represented at all levels of government. What that means is it takes the power of the government away from just being in one central location in the national government and allows power to be used and and exercised by all levels of government so that people in different parts of the country can represent their own interests by passing laws and electing people to pass laws for them that are things that they're interested in that are important to them based on where they live what type of lifestyle they have what what what area of the country they live in. So for example some states in the United States today have legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes whereas in other states that is not allowed the smoking of recreational marijuana is not allowed smoking or eating of marijuana and edibles is not allowed and the reason for that is because different laws of government state and local governments around the country have been allowed to make their own decisions about what they think is best for them what they want to for example allow the use of recreational marijuana so Colorado has decided that they think it's good for them and so they passed that law several years ago allowing the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes in Colorado New York State however does not allow the for the sale and legal use of recreational marijuana because New York State's government and New York City's government have decided that at this point it's not a good idea for whatever reason and so this is an example of how democratic powers dispersed throughout the United States because people in different parts of the country can make decisions of themselves rather than waiting for the federal government to make decisions for them so there are certain things that the federal government only has the right to do that the national government only has a right to do but there are certain things that state and local governments can make can decide for themselves another example uh at least if you go back 10 15 years ago is the issue of gay marriage before the supreme court ruled that the constitution does not permit a state to not allow gay and lesbians to legally marry gay marriage was a state issue some states like massachusetts allowed gay marriage to be legal in the state other states like texas did not because texas believed that marriage is only between a man and a woman so they said well we're not going to allow gay marriage in our state whereas massachusetts believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to be married and uh shortly before the supreme court ruled that gay and lesbian couples have a right to marry anywhere in the united states uh new york states legislature also passed a law allowing for gay marriage to be legal in uh new york state so the laws governing the use of marijuana and laws legalizing gay marriage are two examples of how federalism allows for democratic power to be dispersed meaning given throughout the country given to all levels of government so that different levels of government especially local areas of government can make decisions that they think are best for the people who live in that part of the country rather than have a one-size-fits-all system which is what you have in a unitary system government where the national government makes all the decisions for the for the whole country another example i mean another goal of american federalism is that it is designed to promote innovation by allowing states to serve as quote laboratories of experimentation so the idea is here is that if you have an idea that you want to try out usually these ideas are tried out in local and state governments first and then if they're successful then they're picked up by the national government expanded uh in a nationwide law so one good example of of what i'm talking about here is laws that have been designed to make health care more accessible and more affordable so one of the biggest problems throughout the united states is the problem of health care not enough people have access to health care too many people are not insured do not have health insurance cannot go to the doctor cannot go to the hospital and uh for almost everyone health care is very very expensive and so one of the main goals of government going back decades has been to try to find a way to make health care in the united states both more accessible so that more people have it and to make health care more affordable so that more people can afford to go to the doctor more people can afford to go to the hospital when they need to so today we have a national law that is designed to do this what most people call obamacare the the official name of it is the affordable care act that's the law that was passed by congress and signed into law by president brock obama in 2010 that that tried to make health care more accessible and more affordable and since it passed obamacare has been very controversial many many people think it's a great think it's working well many many other people think it's a horrible law because of many different reasons so but but the the goal of obamacare was to make health care more accessible and more affordable four years before obamacare was passed at a national level a very similar law was passed in the state of massachusetts that in many ways did the very same thing and it was designed to do the same thing which is make health care more accessible and more affordable and that law has since become known as romney care because the governor who was who signed the law in massachusetts was uh mit romney governor mit romney who is now a senator from the state of utah and so uh when brock obama and democrats in congress started working on creating obamacare they used some of the very same ideas that were implemented in uh romney care so they in some ways they took romney care uh expanded it to be nationwide and then that became the foundation of obamacare and so that's a great i a great example of how uh you have a state law romney care that is an innovation meaning an attempt to try something new to solve a problem and by doing something that's never been tried before and because it was successful in massachusetts brock obama then decided okay i'm going to use that idea as the basis for a national law the affordable care act obamacare and so massachusetts was sort of a laboratory of experimentation to experiment and see whether this idea the ideas that were built into a romney care and an obamacare would work they did and that's why obama decided to try to use that as a foundation for a national law obamacare okay so the three things that american federalism is designed to do is create checks and balances by divining power between the central and state local governments disperse democratic power by allowing interests to be represented by at all levels of government giving different levels of government all around the country the ability to make different kinds of laws for the people who live in different parts of the country and promoting innovation by allowing states to serve as laboratories of experimentation so does federalism work more or less yeah it works and it works pretty well so uh federalism is is is good but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its problems federalism has a few problems for one thing it creates overlapping lines of authority which can lead to state federal conflict and one of those problems is the problem of immigration so which is a big issue today especially with the trump administration which has made stopping illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration a major goal of its government and so one of the things that the trump administration has been doing in order to try to stop illegal immigration is to crack down on the illegal immigration through immigration raids through arrests through deportation and through one of the things that has become a real uh controversy during the trump administration separating families uh separating children from adults and putting children into detention at least for a short amount of time before the courts can create an order for deportation so one of the ways that this creates problems between state governments and federal governments is that many state governments and many local governments have what are called sanctuary laws have passed what are called sanctuary laws on New York City for example has a series of sanctuary laws and New York City is sometimes called a sanctuary city because it has sanctuary laws which are designed to protect immigrants who are here illegally immigrants who are in the United States without proper documentation and so one of the uh one of the some of the laws that New York City has relates to uh how law enforcement deals with people who are here illegally so for example uh under New York City law if illegal immigrant calls the police or goes to the police to report a crime uh because either witnessed a crime or they themselves have been a victim of crime the city the this the New York City police will not inquire about their immigration status and if they find out that this person is here illegally they will not arrest them they will not turn them over to federal authorities uh and uh uh because the idea is that New York City wants illegal immigrants to report crimes that they've either witnessed or that they are themselves have been a victim of because this will help solve crime and keep the city safe uh the worry is that if illegal immigrants think that by going to the police they will end up being deported well and then they're not going to go to the police right so if they don't go to the police then that prohibits the police department from solving crime it'll make them charter for the police department to solve crime and it puts these illegal immigrants in much more danger if criminals know that they can pray on them with very little consequences. Another sanctuary law that New York City has has to do with immigrants and health care so just like the law that says that if an immigrant illegal immigrant goes to a police officer and reports a crime that they won't have their illegal immigrant status inquired upon the same goes for hospitals if an illegal immigrant goes to an emergency room to get care or goes to a doctor to get care the doctor the hospital will not inquire about their immigration status and will not turn them over to federal authorities if they are discovered to be here illegally and the same idea applies here is because you don't want uh illegal immigrants not to go to the doctor when they're sick not to go to the hospital when they're sick just imagine now if illegal immigrant with symptoms of of the coronavirus decides not to go to the doctor not to go to the hospital because they're afraid that they might be turned over to the federal government and then be deported then now you've got somebody with coronavirus walking around spreading it to other people uh uncared for and so several local governments around the country and state governments around the country have these types of sanctuary laws which are designed to protect illegal immigrants at the same time though the Trump administration wants to crack down on on illegal immigration in these areas that have sanctuary laws and so in New York City for example the federal government has over the past three years conducted crackdowns trying to find illegal immigrants to deport them so uh this uh is an example of how because the federal government has the right to pass laws and have laws and also because the state government and local governments can do that at the same time sometimes the federal government the national government and state local governments are doing separate things doing different things at the same time that are opposite of each other and that conflict with each other and immigration and sanctuary laws immigration crackdowns and sanctuary laws are examples of how this conflict state federal conflict can happen because of the type of federal system we have in china that kind of thing doesn't happen because china which has a unitary system of government has only one set of laws in national government when it makes a law applies to everybody and that's the only kind of law that applies so you don't have that type of state federal conflict in china and in other unitary governments another big problem with federalism is that states can easily disobey the national government and this happened very famously in the 1950s and 1960s during the civil rights movement during the time when the national government was passing laws to give african-americans more rights under the constitution under the american system of government but some states especially southern states did not like it and so did not abide by it and simply tried to ignore the federal government's effort to have these laws provide more rights for afric-americans one great example of this occurred in in the mid 1950s in 1954 the supreme court ruled in a very famous case called brown versus board of education and the result of this case was the supreme court getting rid of segregation in the educational system again it got rid of segregation in school segregation meaning the idea of keeping blacks and whites separate because of their racial differences so in large parts of the country especially down south in prior to the late 1950s black and white children were forced to go to separate schools and the separate schools for black children were much worse in much worse shape than schools for whites so white children got to go to go to good schools that were well funded that had new textbooks that had lots of after-school activities that had honors classes whereas blacks in the same area black children in the same area uh same school district would have to go to a school that was not very well funded did not have new textbooks did not have very many extra career activities if at all did not have honors classes uh so in short uh education for black children was a lot inferior it was very much inferior to the uh to the education that was given to white children and so in 1954 the NAACP uh brought a case the NAACP the national association for the advancement of color people a major civil rights group in the United States brought a lawsuit stating that this system of segregation this system of separating children by race in schools was a violation of the United States Constitution which says that you can't discriminate between people based on race based on the color of your skin and in 1954 the Supreme Court ruled uh in agreement and said yes we believe that the Constitution in the United States does not permit states to separate school children by race and so it ruled that states had to begin desegregating their schools meaning start to allow black and white children to go go to the same equally funded equally statused schools southern states immediately began saying no we're not going to do that we don't care what the Supreme Court says we're going to keep segregating by uh by race and so in 1955 uh the president of the United States at the time Dwight Eisenhower had to actually use military force u.s military force u.s army to force desegregation in uh the city of Little Rock Arkansas the capital of Arkansas because uh the governor of Arkansas uh refused to allow a group of black high school students that had been uh integrated into a formerly white high school uh to be allowed to go to the school the the the governor of Arkansas actually used National Guard and state police to prevent these black children from going to school and and that was in direct violation to what the supreme court had said needed to happen and so Dwight Eisenhower the president of the United States decided to use his own military force the u.s army to force the governor of Arkansas to allow uh these black children there were nine of them they were known as the little black the the Little Rock nine to go to school uh and so uh this episode uh surrounding the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court case shows uh how uh one of the problems of of American federalism is that uh you can have states easily disobey the national government because states can make their own rules and so if they say well are the rules we want uh go against the rules that the federal governor says we have to live by and so we're not going to obey the federal government we're going to live by our own rules and so states can easily disobey the national government doesn't happen a lot but it can happen uh and it happened very seriously in the 1950s and 1960s during the civil rights movement another uh way that federalism can be bad another drawback to federalism is that because states can make their own rules and laws different from other states inequalities can often exist between people living in different states and and good example of that is an example i mentioned uh a little bit before which is the example of gay marriage before the supreme court ruled that the constitution uh permits gay and lesbian couples throughout the united states to get married regardless of where they live in the united states uh gay marriage was a state by state issue some states allowed gay marriage to be legal other states did not and so depending on what state you lived in 10 years ago 15 years ago uh you may or may not have been able to legally marry if you were gay uh if you lived in messachusetts you could be you could legally get married if you lived in florida you could not uh and so that's an example of how inequalities can exist between people living in different states because different states are allowed to make their own laws for certain uh things all right one thing that has happened with federalism over time since 1788 since the adoption of the constitution until now the balance of power between the national and state governments has evolved the power of the national government over time has grown while state power has weakened and so this is another example of what your textbook calls a power problem the the balancing power in this case balancing power between the national government and the state law governments uh initially the founding fathers wanted the national government to have more power but they also wanted state governments to have almost as much power as the national government so that the national government would not be able to put the state governments into a position where they felt that they were being bullied by the national government but that's pretty much what has happened now the power of the national government has grown while state power has weakened and because of the states often feel that the federal government is encroaching on their powers an example of that would be immigration and sanctuary laws that I talked about before because one of things that the Trump administration is trying to do now is prevent state governments and local governments from being able to legally have these sanctuary laws they're trying the Trump administration is trying to get the Supreme Court to state that sanctuary laws or unconstitutional are impermissible so in in other words state governments now feel that the Trump administration is trying to take powers away from them the power to control immigration within their own state and local government so that's another example of what your textbook calls the power problem all right let's talk about the key constitutional elements of our federal system of American federalism and by this I mean the concepts within the constitution that make federalism work the way it does what what in the constitution discusses how federalism is going to work well one of the things in the constitution that that centers around federalism is something called the commerce power and this is the power to regulate business commerce is in other words for business the buying and selling of things one of the most powerful things that the government can do both on state and federal level is to regulate business to tell businesses what they can and can't do to tax businesses and to tax us the people and to govern how business is conducted in the united states because business is money money is power business is power and so the commerce power the constitution is a very important part of the constitution and a very important element of federalism the commerce power of the constitution is explained in a part of the constitution called the commerce clause uh a clause is a piece of writing so the commerce clause is a piece of writing in the constitution which explains the constitution's power to regulate commerce and so according to the commerce clause the commerce clause gives the the national government the power to regulate something called interstate commerce and it gives state governance the power to regulate something called interstate commerce and so we have two types of commerce here interstate and intrastate now interstate commerce sorry interstate commerce is uh oops okay interstate commerce is commerce that gets conducted between two different states so for example if i buy something on amazon here in new york and amazon is sending it to me from a warehouse in florida for example let's say i buy tv from amazon and the tv the warehouse is located in florida and so amazon is going to take that tv put it on a truck and then send it to me here in new york from florida so from the time the truck takes off from where it is to where i live here in new york city it's going to go through different states and so that is what we mean by interstate it's going between two different states so because we're talking about interstate commerce here the national government has the power to regulate that commerce meaning tax it right so if uh if the national government wanted to tax me on that it could another example of interstate commerce is uh businesses that do uh business between states major league baseball for example is a business that does business between states so the new york mess uh their home corporate office is here in new york their home stadium is here in new york but in the course of doing their business they travel over the country to play teams in other cities in other states so that's an example in interstate commerce so if the national government wanted to pass a law that regulated baseball that said how long a baseball season could be or any other type of of law that that that governed the way that major league baseball operates the national government can do that on the other hand uh you have what's called interstate commerce commerce that gets conducted between in between two parts of a different state that commerce that only is conducted within one single state so for example uh if i go across the street uh to buy a quart of milk from the local bodega on the corner that is interstate commerce because the commerce that's being conducted me buying the quart of milk is only happening within the state of new york and so if the national government wanted to tax that commerce it could not right uh the national government could not have a national sales tax on me buying that quart of milk in new york only the city of new york and the state of new york could tax me and that's that's what it does sales tax when we pay sales tax here in new york we only pay it on things we buy in new york uh not things uh or any other state because if you go to new jersey you're paying new jersey sales tax because that's still interstate commerce within this uh standing of new jersey but uh you're not paying a federal sales tax because the commerce that's being conducted is within only one state right uh and it's also why if uh i order something online from new jersey and i have it shipped to me here in new york i may not pay sales tax because uh it's interstate commerce okay so the commerce power and the commerce clause divides the power to regulate commerce between the federal government on the one hand the national government on one hand and state law governments on the other based on whether the commerce is interstate or interstate interstate meaning between two different states or between two or more different states is governed by the national government whereas interstate commerce commerce that gets conducted solely within one single state is governed by the state law governments because only state governments have the power to regulate interstate commerce on the constitution so national governments have the power to regulate interstate government commerce and the state governments have the power to regulate interstate commerce uh another very important part of the constitution that has to do with federalism is the supremacy clause and the supremacy clause states that whenever a state law or action conflicts with a national law or action the national law or action is supreme what does that mean it means that if the state government passes a law that conflicts with a law that the federal government has passed on the same issue the national law is uh supreme meaning takes precedence and it nullifies the state law meaning the state law doesn't apply so here's here's a here's a great example of of of this under our constitution now the US government the United States government does not permit slavery to exist in the United States slavery was abolished with the passage of the 13th amendment at the end of the civil war and the 13th amendment states that no state shall allow slavery so slavery can exist anywhere in the United States anymore so even though new york state can pass laws for new york for for the state of new york one example of a law that new york states literally could never pass is a law legalizing slavery within the state of new york because as soon as it tried to the supremacy clause would invalidate it because slavery is illegal in the united states so if slavery is illegal in the united states as a whole because of the constitution because of national law no state law no local law can create slavery in the united states so that's an example of what the supreme clause is about the full faith and credit clause is another great uh piece of the constitution that has to do with federalism and the full faith and credit clause states that every state is required to honor and respect the laws institutions of other states so even though different states can pass different types of laws and have different types of institutions or similar types of the same institution they all still have to respect each other's laws so a great example of this is uh driver's licenses okay every single state in the united states has a system for granting driver's licenses and they're all different uh as a resident of new york state i have a new york driver's license and i got that after going through a process that is that was created by new york state that governs uh who has the right to get a driver's license in new york you have to pass a serious test pay a fee and get your driver's license so the qualifications requirements for having a driver's license in new york state are different than the requirements and qualifications for having a driver's license in new jersey so does that mean that my new york driver's license only permits me to drive legally in the state of new york no obviously no you can drive anywhere in the united states as long as you have a valid driver's license from any state why is that because of the full faith and credit clause because we have a full faith and credit clause uh new york is required to respect the laws and institutions of every other state and every other state is required to respect and honor the laws and institutions of other states uh meaning that even though i have not passed a driver's uh test or written test in new jersey even though i don't have a new jersey driver's license because i have a valid new york driver's license i am allowed to legally drive in the state of new jersey right and obviously the requirement there is that you have to abide by the laws of the state you're in so uh even though uh new york uh and new jersey have different uh uh uh traffic laws doesn't mean that i only have to honor the traffic laws of new york if i'm driving new jersey i have to follow the law in new jersey if i'm driving in wyoming i have to follow the laws in wyoming if somebody in california has a driver's license a california driver's license is driving in new york they've got to uh follow the laws of of uh new york uh and so uh you can i think you can understand easily why why the full friend credit clause is so important because it makes us one country even though we have 50 different states with different uh state governments we're still one country and in order to successfully be one country and act like one country we've got to have a system and something in place that requires states to honor each other's laws uh and institutions uh because if we didn't and if people in new york couldn't drive in new jersey people in new jersey can drive in new york uh we wouldn't be one country and so the full friend credit clause allows us to be one country and something that makes federalism work the way it does and makes federalism work pretty successfully okay so uh the last thing i want to say is that the federal government often uses money to exert influence over the states right so one of the uh great things about federalism is that disperses democratic power it allows different state governments and different local governments in different parts of the country to make laws that they think are good for the people living in their different parts of the country uh the federal government sometimes doesn't like this because the national government sometimes wants every state to have the same set of laws to make things sometimes easier more seamless uh and so sometimes the federal government will try to uh force states to accept laws that they want them to accept to do things that they may not want to do but that the federal government wants them to do and so one source of leverage that the federal government has that the national government has to try to make state governments do what it wants them to do is money the federal government has a lot of money and it uses that money to essentially in other words bribe uh state governments to accept uh a law that they want uh them to accept so a good example of this uh occurred back in 1973 uh when the federal government wanted to create a a standardized nationwide speed limit on highways uh at 55 miles per hour and the reason why I wanted to do that was to conserve energy in 1973 uh there was an oil shortage around the world and that led to very high gas prices here in the United States and so one of the ways that the national government uh tried to conserve energy and bring down gas prices was to have a 55 mile per hour speed limit because uh 50 miles per hour at a time was a good way to get cars to use less fuel over over time it preserved high gas mileage 55 miles per hour so uh so congress uh passed a national highway law that created a 55 mile speed limit the problem was most highways in the United States are maintained by state governments and not by the national government so the uh 50 mile per hour speed limit that congress passed would not apply to state highways and so the federal government wanted to uh wanted to get state governments to accept the 50 mile per hour speed limit under state highways and so one of the things that it did was tell state governments that uh we won't give you any more highway money uh highway construction money anymore unless you accept the 50 mile per hour speed limit and because states were so dependent on getting this financial aid from the federal government states immediately agreed to accept the 50 mile per hour standard speed limit in order to uh to uh get this money and so uh this uh this uh use of leverage what some might call a bribe is what are formerly known as conditional grants grants that the federal government gives to state and local governments grants meaning financial aid that are conditional that are based on conditions we will only give you the money if you do this we will only give you highway money if you accept the 50 mile per hour speed limit and so conditional grants are often used they're still used today by the national government by the federal government in order to get states to do things that it wants them to do that the national government wants them to do so it's a way of the national government using money to exert influence over the states okay so that's the end of uh our lecture on federalism uh i hope you got something out of it