Federalism & intergovernmental relations
How US federalism allocates power between nation and states—constitutional text, landmark cases, and the fiscal levers that drive modern intergovernmental relations.
The Constitutional Allocation of Power
Federalism is the division of sovereignty between a national government and constituent state governments, each acting directly on the same citizens. The US Constitution distributes power through three categories. Delegated (enumerated) powers belong to the national government, principally Article I, Section 8—the powers to tax, borrow, regulate interstate and foreign commerce, coin money, declare war, and raise armies. The Necessary and Proper Clause (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 18) supplies implied powers to execute the enumerated ones. Reserved powers belong to the states under the Tenth Amendment (1791): "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Concurrent powers—taxation, lawmaking, courts—are exercised by both.
The Supremacy Clause and McCulloch
When national and state law conflict, Article VI's Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties "the supreme Law of the Land." The foundational interpretation came in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), where Chief Justice John Marshall upheld Congress's power to charter the Second Bank of the United States as a legitimate implied power and struck down Maryland's tax on it, declaring that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Marshall read "necessary and proper" expansively—as "appropriate" and "plainly adapted"—laying the doctrinal foundation for national supremacy.
The commerce power is the chief engine of national authority. Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) defined interstate commerce broadly; Wickard v. Filburn (1942) extended it to wheat grown for personal consumption because of aggregate effects on the national market; and Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) sustained the Civil Rights Act's public-accommodations provisions on a commerce rationale. Limits reappeared in United States v. Lopez (1995), striking the Gun-Free School Zones Act, and NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), which held the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate could not rest on the commerce power (though it survived as a tax).
Evolving Models of Federalism
Scholars chart federalism's evolution through metaphors. Dual federalism ("layer cake," roughly 1789–1937) treated national and state spheres as distinct, with the Supreme Court policing boundaries. Cooperative federalism ("marble cake"), accelerated by the New Deal and NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel (1937), blended functions through shared programs and grants. Coercive (or fiscal) federalism describes Washington's use of money to direct state policy. A countervailing New Federalism—devolving authority to states—ran through Nixon's revenue sharing, Reagan's block grants, and the 1996 welfare reform (PRWORA), which converted Aid to Families with Dependent Children into the TANF block grant. The Court reinforced state autonomy in Printz v. United States (1997), which barred federal commandeering of state officials, and New York v. United States (1992).