‘Federal Government Increasingly Dominates State Governments in the Usa.’ Discuss.

A2 politicsJess Waldron ‘Federal government increasingly dominates state governments in the USA. ’ Discuss The United States of America have a federal constitution, where the President of the United States, Congress, and the judiciary share powers, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments. This is the stark opposite to the unitary system in the UK where sovereignty lies in parliament and some powers are given to local assemblies.There are many types of federalism; all have been a dominant influence in the American political system at some point due to the style of leadership brought in by each new presidential candidate. Throughout U. S. history, the division of power between the federal government and state governments has been the subject of continuous political interest. After suffering from the British government's tyrannical ideologies that led to the American Revolution (1775), many Americans were conditioned to distrust centralized governmental powers.As a result, when Congress drew up the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the new central government was assigned very few powers. The central government had little authority over taxation, court systems and commerce. The states were essentially politically independent governments, each free to regulate commerce in whatever ever way they wanted, make money, and have their state courts hold judgment over national laws mostly entrenched in the US constitution. In 1787 a Constitutional Convention was called to restructure the government and create a national economy.This convention was called as many Americans realized after the American Revolution, that such an unorganized governmental structure entirely based on state powers would hold back political and economic growth of America as a country. Debates were rife between federalists, those supporting a strong central government as proposed in a Virginia plan, and anti-federalists supporting continued strong state g overnments as proposed in a New Jersey plan. Finally, a compromise, known as the Great Compromise, was struck in Philadelphia deciding on federalism as the basis for the governmental structure.Federalism is a dual (split in two) system of sovereignty, splitting power between a central government and various state governments. Both the federal and state governments can directly govern citizens through their own officials and laws. The resulting Constitution allowed powers for both federal and state governments. Each had some separate powers and some shared powers. A federalist called John Marshall, as Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, made decisions favoring a strong federal government over state government power.In Marbury v. Madison (1803) Marshall used judicial review (where the Court is the government body to decide whether laws are constitutional), this was used in accordance with the principles and power established by the Constitution. By the late 1930s, the Great Depr ession resulted in a dramatic change. The idea of federalism and Marshall's earlier positions returned. In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) the Court extended federal power to regulate some economic activities within states.Under a broadened Commerce Clause interpretation, federal powers expanded at the expense of state powers and emphasis on the Tenth Amendment declined. The Court in NLRB v. United States (1936) reaffirmed the Wagner Act which brought labor relations under federal oversight. In addition, the Social Security Act creating a national retirement fund, passed in 1935. Another important shift in power had occurred. Increased federal powers were further recognized in the 1950s and 1960s, primarily over the issue of racial discrimination. Through the 1940s the states had kept the responsibility for governing the rights of its citizens.Therefore, to protect individual rights from state abuses, the Supreme Court began â€Å"issuing decisions limiting state powers rela ted to freedoms of speech and religion, due process rights to fair trials, and equal protection of the law†. The Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) barred racial segregation policies in public schools and brought local school districts under federal oversight. A 1965 ruling in South Carolina v. Katzenbach upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that prohibited state-established voting requirements.Also in 1965, the protection of privacy from state powers was recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) setting the basis for abortion rights. On the other hand, New federalism came into effect in the latter half of the twentieth century due to the southern white resentment against the role of Washington in bringing an end to segregation in the 50’s and 60’s. Over taxation, voter apathy and over regulation from federal government also added to this umbrage from the citizens of America. New federalism was promoted by republican presiden ts, most notably RichardNixon (1969-1974) and Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) to address the growing disillusionment between citizens and federal government. It gave power back to the states and reversed federal dominance somewhat by promoting measure to give states greater leverage. An example of one of these measures is Clinton’s ‘unfunded mandates act’, which required that the congressional budgets office to provide estimates of the cost of bills with federal mandates once they were put forth to be discussed on the floor of the senate/house of representatives. Not only did federal government push for state rights, so did the Supreme Court.Examples of this are cases such as US v. Lopez (1995) where the interstate commerce clause of the constitution was interpreted in a more limited way. In 1791, an amendment was passed to allow the powers that weren’t granted to neither federal nor state government, be reserved to the states. President Clinton famously remarke d in 1966 that ‘the era of big government is over’ and he worked to redirect financial resources and responsibilities back to the states. Similarly to many other republican candidates such as President Reagan who promised to further the extent of new federalism through state grants and limited revenue-sharing.Not only did republican candidates for the Whitehouse make bold movements for the shuffling of power back towards the states, so did the states themselves. They introduced cuts in income tax rates and also became more involved in education within their states like in Vermont and the introduction of meal vouchers. Also, in tackling crime, like in New York city where the Mayor introduced his ‘Zero tolerance’ approach to petty crimes. There is a lot of evidence both for agreeing that federal government dominates state government and against. But, it can also be said to strike the right balance.Since 2009, federal-state relations have changed yet again wit h the introduction of Obama’s ‘Progressive’ federalism. Many expected Obama’s presidency to involve an expansion of federal authority based on his political record, but given the â€Å"kaleidoscopic† history of federalism, as described by Zimmerman, it was a shock to see how far he actually went. He moved away from the notion of pre-emption which showed that he may want to incorporate more elements of co-operative federalism as oppose to any one entity having more power than the other.A recent decision of Obama’s that demonstrates his ‘progressive’ federalism in action was to allow California and other states the freedom to set their own limits on greenhouse gases from. This represents a shift in the relationship of federal government and state by looking to states for new measures and guidance. But at the same time keep overall say within congress and the executive. In conclusion, after evaluating both sides of the argument that the essay question has posed, it is obvious that states do in fact have many powers, but overall power is still held in federal government.This is a beneficial thing as federal government are utilitarian and diverse enough to make decisions for the greater good as oppose to a small margin of opinions expressed by one section of the USA influencing another part that may have completely different ideologies. There is a definate shift in the Obama administration to a more ‘cooperative’ form of federalism, instead of the political systems in American having to be overly state rights or overly federal government.