Talk:Federalism in the United States

Jefferson

Jefferson was not an anti-Federalist. As I understand it, he thought there should be a Bill of Rights, but thought the Constitution was basically good. As the then US Minister to France, he was not in a position to have a public position on it one way or the other. john k 18:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I know this is a rather long-overdue response, but Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican. Democratic-Republicans were, at least partially, former-members of the anti-Federalist party. The anti-Federalists were not exactly anti-Federalism, but they had certain apprehensions about the national government.

Federalism (as used in this article) means recognizing equal sovereignty (or at least co-sovereignty) between the state and national government.

The Federalist Party, in opposition to the ideals of Federalism (as used in this article), idealized a strong national government. The "anti-Federalists" (i.e., the Anti-Federalist Party) idealized stronger state governments. Jefferson shared sympathies with members of the anti-Federalist party (namely, Jefferson desired a bill of rights in the Federal Constitution), but Jefferson also wanted a government which involved the separation of powers between state and national government. Long story short, Jefferson was simultaneously a Federalist (proponent of Federalism) and an anti-Federalist (shared ideas with the anti-Federalist party).

If that hadn't been clarified in the preceding 16 years, I hope it is clarified now. Hope you are well. I am a Leaf (talk) 20:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Rename

Can I rename this article to Federalism in the United States to bring in line with Federalism in Australia? AndrewRT(Talk) 21:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Quite an odd reasonong. By that standard, Federalism in Australia should be moved to Australian federalism to be in line with Canadian federalism. Which has been at that title the whole 3 years since the above comment was posted. Quite odd this phobia people have of US articles being titled defferently, but to heck with the others that are different! - BilCat (talk) 23:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... not sure whether this is a move or a merge, both articles have non-trivial histories although there is a lot of text in common. Andrewa 16:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Federalism in the United States is now a redirect here, as the merge was completed several days/weeks ago. I'll tag the pages for a history merge (which only an admin can do) so we can keep the edit histories of both pages. - BillCJ 17:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that redirect before. So in your opinion the merge is complete?

If it really was a merge then probably a history merge is the last thing we now want... it could destroy both article histories by interleaving the edits. Rather, we need to preserve the edit histories of both articles. There are several ways this could be achieved. Andrewa 21:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

And it's been done. See Talk:Federalism (United States) for discussion of the merge. Andrewa 06:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent addition toFederalism, may be an improvement, but is too long for a summary article

Federalism United States (continue)

The Oxford Guide to the United States Government describes federalism in America as “the division of governmental powers between the national and state governments." This system of federalism allows the federal government and state government to share power is a remarkable characteristic. The United States has five characteristics of the federal system. “Federalism provides a division of legal authority between state and national governments overlap occurs, but two legally distinct spheres of government exist. Second, the states are subordinate to the national government in such areas as management of foreign affairs and regulation of interstate commerce. Third, federalism enables positive cooperation between state and national governments in programs pertaining to education, interstate highway construction, health, environment protection, unemployment, and social security concerns. Fourth, the United States Supreme Court serves as legal arbiter of the federal system in regard to conflicting claims of state and national government. Fifth, the two levels of government exercise direct authority simultaneously over people within their territory. Dual citizenship exists under federalism, and individuals can claim a wider range of rights and privileges from both state and national governments."

The Bill of Rights contains ten amendments, the first nine amendments where rights granted to individuals. The Tenth amendment granted powers to the state and not the individual. Each state and congressman wanted the state to be a part of governments’ plan. As this nation formed, there has been a problem between the federal government and the state government in regards to the balance of power.

In the beginning of this nation there was a limit to the powers that were granted to the federal government. The founders wanted to limit the powers, so that a dictator would never become the leader of the United States. They were after all citizens of British colonies where the monarchy had power to rule over them. Therefore we started the American rebellion, which led to the Revolutionary war and our Declaration of Independence, then the Articles of Confederation which ultimately led to the United States Constitution. During most of this time each state was its own state. There was no central government created not until either the ratification of the constitution in 1788 or the inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States in April of 1789.

The tenth amendment created the debate over federalism. Some supporters argue for states’ right which is “the doctrine that the states have sovereign powers equal to the national government.” Others believe in nationalism which is the supremacy of the federal government over states. This debate led to many Supreme Court rulings the first ruling was in favor of nationalism.

In McCulloch v. Maryland the court decided that the tenth amendment implied that powers was given to the national government because of the Necessary and Proper clause in Article one that gave powers to congress. The court then declared that Maryland had no right to tax a bank that was created by the national government because of the powers that was given to the government.

Another example of the debate over federalism was from Chief Justice Roger Taney who supported states’ rights. Chief Justice Taney praised dual sovereignty which is the distribution of power between the national government and state government under the United States Constitution with overlapping authority.

Article six in the constitution declares that the United States Constitution “shall be the supreme Law of the land.” When the Constitution was ratified in 1788 judges in every state has to obey the constitution no matter if their own state constitution has a different law. With the constitution being ratified this created a problem for the states to become the United States of America. Various rulings throughout the Supreme Court have turned the federalism debate around. It seems to show that the party in charge leads to the change in the way federalism goes from here.

Depending on which party is in the White House, that party can change some of the justices if any retired. This has allowed many rulings of the tenth amendment to change depending on the party in charge. In 1918 court ruled in favor of states’ rights because of article one’s commerce clause that prohibited goods produce by children from interstate commerce was determined to be a states’ right under the tenth amendment not congressional power. In 1941 the courted ruled that the 1918 case was overruled because congress can regulate wages for employees that do interstate commerce. In 1997 the court struck down the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act known as Brady bill because of the commerce clause saying it infringed on dual sovereignty which is protected by the Constitution in regards to the Tenth Amendment.

Federalism United States Election

United States takes pride in our experiment in democracy. Democracy calls for the people to choose their leaders, and hold their leaders accountable for their conduct, and policies while in office. The people are the highest form of power. We demand free and fair elections that are schedule by the government every four years for presidential election, every two for House of Representatives, and every six year for Senate. State and local elections are determined by each state. In Ohio, voters are allowed to vote for the Supreme Court candidates every six years which is rare in most states. The government sets the general election as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. There are frequently multiple elections in any year.

To understand United States elections the key point is federalism. Each state sets the rules and regulations for how each election is conducted. Each state tells who can participate, and how they must register in order to participate. The state also determines when the due date for registration is completed. Each county in every state has their own way on how the votes will be counted.

History of the American election starts with white male landowners could only participate in elections. By the mid 1800’s states reduce the requirement of owning property so that each party could be competitive for more voters. Additional expansions to the voter roles happen by force from the federal government and by adding amendments to the Constitution. For example the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments extend the right to vote to black men but “the nineteenth amendment ratified in 1920, which extent the right to vote for women.” In 1965, the Voting Rights Act finally allowed the corrected access for African Americans to vote and in 1971 voters between the age of eighteen and twenty was able to vote because of the twenty-six amendment.

States continue to control their election process through registration. The state is responsible party for voter registration rather than the individual. In 1993, Congress set out to expand voter registration by allowing different state agencies to offer every voter the chance to register to vote. Example of this is the bureau of motor vehicles which allows people to register to vote and receive their license or change of address to be done while at bureau of motor vehicles. Each voter is screen by the state to ensure they meet their state minimum registration process. Each state also has a minimum number of days that the person is require to live in the district before he or she is allow to vote. Each state checks to make sure the voter is not a convicted felon. These requirements are needed so that our elections are free, fair, and prevent voter fraud.

The states are required to hold free and fair elections. The state determines which offices are filled though elections, and how long each office holder stays in office before he or she is reelected. Terms, salary, and responsibility of elected and non-elected officials vary from state to state. Elections happen in different times of the year depending on the issue, the office, or possible amendment change in the state that person reside.

The state also is required to count each ballot casted. The local board is responsible to determine how each ballot will be counted even if it is a presidential election. The most document example is in the 2000 election of Gore versus Bush in Florida. Where each county had their own process to count each ballot not mention each county had the choice to decide how the ballot was going to be designed. The most controversial ballot was the butterfly ballot that allowed some supporters to vote for the wrong candidate. As long as this nation has free and fair elections, and uses the federal system we will continue to have problems as we exist. Because our democracy is part of the experiment that has taken place for our two hundred years and will continue to flourish in the decades to come.

added by user:GeogsSynchronism (talk) 04:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That is utterly opinionated, NPOV bullshit that makes a great deal of assumptions.108.131.77.13 (talk) 22:56, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

References

"The United States is divided into a number of separate states" (map caption)

The Constitution states that the United States is comprised of a number of seperate states, not divided into a number of seperate states. Jgharston (talk) 19:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Shared Sovereignty Redirect

Shared Sovereignty currently redirects to this article. Wouldn't it make more sense for it to redirect to Sovereignty, or its section on Shared Sovreignty, or the article on Condominium? I'm not really sure why this term redirects to this article, rather than articles about the term itself... 2607:8400:2802:10:250:56FF:FEAB:339C (talk) 06:58, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Negative perspectives on Federalism.

Maybe it's just my own bias, but this article doesn't strike me as neutral enough in tone. It seems to be explaining how the Federal government slowly took power from the states as if that was a good thing (in most places), but I assure you that not everyone agrees with that viewpoint. I mean, perhaps it's clever of the Federals to "reach directly to local political machines in order to bypass state legislatures", but is it right? Aren't state legislatures there for a reason, and isn't it kind of messed up for the Federal government to be finding ways to "bypass" them when they realize that the elected state legislatures won't follow along with them? Not that that has stopped them in the past..."legality" and other minor things like that are of secondary importance to the Federal government when it comes to getting what they want. And what about

  "By 1933, the precedents necessary for the federal government to exercise broad regulatory power over all economic activity and spend for any purpose it saw fit were almost all in place. Virtually all that remained was for the will to be mustered in Congress and for the Supreme Court to acquiesce."

So, basically, it was the end game of the chess match? They slowly passed precedent after precedent, including spending money under the "general welfare clause", even though it had been decided long before that they had absolutely no right to do so, until finally all the pieces fell into place, and they had a precedent to control everything important in the US, simply because no-one had bothered to stop them? A fait accompli, that only required a willingness by Congress to use its power, and a agreeable Supreme court to finish the veneer of legality? This was a positive thing? And what did the elected state governments think about all of this? The citizens that are being governed? I happen to know that my state was quite pissed off when the Federal government started coercing us by threatening to cut off all of our highway funding if we didn't modify our internal state laws (particularly on the minimum drinking age) to conform with the Federal age limit. Blatantly unconstitutional, and far outside of any stated scope of Federal powers, but they just ignored little details like that. We and a number of other states even tried it in the courts, but to no avail. I think the article ought to at least have a section dedicated to the perceived negative aspects of US Federalism, because there are many, and it's a valid viewpoint, whatever you may believe personally..45Colt 18:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Total plagiarism

A large section of this article is totally plagiarized from a separate website; specifically "Despite the Supreme Court’s stubbornness on guarding states’ rights, much of the modern federal apparatus owes its origins to changes that occurred during the period between 1861 and 1933. While banks had long been incorporated and regulated by the states, the National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864 saw Congress establish a network of national banks that had their reserve requirements set by officials in Washington. During World War I, a system of federal banks devoted to aiding farmers was established, and a network of federal banks designed to promote homeownership came into existence in the last year of Herbert Hoover's administration. Congress used its power over interstate commerce to regulate the rates of interstate (and eventually intrastate)..."

Picture

Hi, I see that there is a banner requesting an image for this page.

I would like to nominate this image. While, yes, it's strictly American, I think it's illustrates the separation of powers and the shared sovereignty of the states/national government better than any other image on Wikipedia.

I am not entirely sure how i'd integrate this image into the article, i'm not the best at formatting, but I just propose the image as a solution to the banner requesting an image. I am a Leaf (talk) 18:20, 15 November 2023 (UTC)