5 to 5 AP Government Chapter 7: Federalism

• Federalism - a political system where the powers of government are divided between anational government and regional governments. Each level of government has certain authority over the same territory and people.
• article IV of the Constitution addresses the issue of relationships between the states. provisions:
  • Full Faith and Credit Clause - States are required to recognize the laws and legal documents of other states such as birth certificates
  • Privileges and Immunities Clause - States are prohibited from unreasonably discriminating against residents of other states
  • Extradition - States can return fugitives to a state from which they have fled to avoid criminal prosecution at the request of the governor of the state
  • Interstate compacts - States can make agreements to work together to solve regional problems
• Article IV of the Constitution provides national guarantees to the states:
  • republican form of government
  • protections against foreign invasion
  • protections against domestic violence
  • respect for the geographic integrity of states
• Establishing National Supremacy 
  • Supremacy Clause- which helps to resolve conflicts between national and state laws.
    • states that the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land.”
    • Supreme Court upheld this supremacy in McCulloch v. Maryland then expanded interstate power in Gibbons v. Ogden
• McCulloch v. Maryland
  • Maryland imposed a tax on the Baltimore branch of the Second National Bank of the United States. McCulloch refused to pay the tax
  • the Marshall court ruled that although no provision of the Constitution grants the national government the expressed power to create a national bank, the authority to do so can be implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause 
    • established the implied powers of the national government and national supremacy
• Dual Federalism - earliest form of federalism, often referred to as “layer cake federalism,” because each level of government is seen as separate from the other
• Cooperative Federalism - shifted to cooperative in the 1930s, known as “marble cake federalism”, grew from the policies of the New Deal era and the need for the national government to increase government spending during the Great Depression.
• New Federalism - during the administrations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, national government attempted to implement a reversal of cooperative federalism
• Devolution- a transfer of power to political subunits
  • has been used to describe the goals of new federalism.
• Fiscal Federalism - national government’s patterns of spending, taxation, and providing grants to influence state and local governments
  • grants-in-aid programs - money and resources provided by the federal government to the state and local governments to be used for specific projects
  • categorical grants - Grants that have a specific purpose defined by law; may even require “matching funds” from the state or local governments
  • block grants - General grants that can be used for a variety of purposes within a broad category; fewer strings attached so state and local governments have greater freedom in how the money is spent; preferred by states 
  • revenue sharing - Proposed under the Johnson administration and popular under the Nixon administration, a “no strings attached” form of aid to state and local governments; eliminated during Reagan Administration
  • mandates- Requirements that are imposed by the national government on the state and local governments; often require state or local governments to meet the requirement at their own expense (unfunded mandates). 
    • After the mid-term elections of 1994, Unfunded Mandate Reform Act placed limitations on Congress’s ability to pass unfunded mandate