Character of federal–state Relations Today
Essay Topic:
Federalism Essay Question: Describe the character of federal–state relations today. How much influence does the federal government wield over the states? What tools can it use to coerce state compliance with federal measures? What means do states have, to resist, federal initiatives? Describe several ways in which the American federal system contains or limits political or policy choices that Texas might otherwise make.
Federalism is defined as a system of the central government whereby power is divided among various authorities such as the central authority and positions with self-governing authority which is not diminished. There are mainly four different specializations which include national/central government, sub-national governments knew assets of regional governments (Bulman-Pozen & Jessica 2014). Federal systems can be differentiated from other systems such as urinary, simply because of the power of the legislation which is shared with the central government in the case of urinary systems but for the federal case it is shared and divided between the various levels of the government. It is a constitutional coexistence between the government of America and the federal government of the United States. Currently, the new federalism advocates the protection of rights of the states and is it is concerned with the civil rights movement. There has been national growth due to the promotion of peaceful coexistence between the state and its neighborhood due to the implementation of federalism as funds are also raised to contribute to the power and supremacy of the central government.
The federal government in the United States has been a lot of influence in the nation, whose powers and obligations are not given to by the constitution and also not denied by it to the states. Equal justice under the law has enabled the Supreme Court to manifest its powers in giving fair judgments hence enabling peace and harmony among the citizens of the United States as well as acting as the administrator and guarding the constitution (Marks, 2016). There are various laws which act in protection of the human rights and in case they are broken various consequences follow the breakers. Federalism has dominated the United States of America, affecting the daily lives of the residents, both from the political and local view. The welfare, health, and safety of the citizens are always well protected by the federal-state of governance which enables them to be free and always proud of their independence (Smith et al 2017).
State compliance with federal measures can be met through application of several tools such as setting certain limits, where the offenders are highly dealt with by the law, in the application of the federal power to directly authorize the nation in terms of meeting the set national goals and objectives. The United States of America also acquaints offers which are not compulsory to the citizens and this depreciates the nature of coerciveness. Another tool that can be used in this case is that the federal activities should not be undertaken directly by the authority but through the circumstances of aid. The state can also be threatened to be deducted a certain percentage of its GDP in order to get intimidated and work in accordance with the law (Marson et al. 2015). For example, the Supreme Court gave a ruling that the states would be deducted 5% of the highway federal funds if only they did not raise the age of drinking from 18 to 21 years. At this point, a law is automatically adhered to, regardless of it being productive or abusive and it leads to ‘pressure turning into compulsion’ in fear of charges.
States have several means which they can apply to resist federal initiatives, bearing in mind that the system is faced with ambiguous perennial questions. States initially forced the federal officers to first argue and come to a conclusion together with them, additional funding and other extensions being funded for their benefit so as to accept the federal initiatives. Failure to follow those instructions they could not accept federalism at all. They meant that their priorities were to be met first before implementation of such initiatives. They also resisted claiming that the goals of states did not match those of federalism in whichever way especially when the Real ID Act was implemented and the majority refused to work on emerging standards in securing their driving licenses. They also boycotted national programs whenever their grievances and priorities were not met (Dinan & John 2017).
The power separation leads to division and sharing of powers among the legislature, executive and the judiciary of the American national government, granting them independence to work on their own. This separation of powers in the line of checks and balances reduces the mentality of the politicians’ goals of serving in various institutions. In Texas, political ambitions and affiliations are not exemplified under whichever circumstances to either give or take powers from the politicians as it is done in the United States, a factor that should be put into action to ease political administration. The Supreme Court serves as a referee in United States, having the final say over all the other departments, president inclusive whereas in Texas the presidents compete for control of the national government (Anglicizing, et al 2015).
References
Mason, Alpheus Thomas, and Grier Stephenson. American constitutional law: introductory essays and selected cases. Routledge, 2015.
America, Anglicizing, et al. “Jared Hardesty Jared Hardesty is an assistant professor of history at Western Washington University and is currently finishing a book about slavery in eighteenth-century Boston.” New England Quarterly 88.4 (2015): 717-720.
Dinan, John. “Introduction to a Special Issue on Martha Derthick’s Federalism Scholarship.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 47.2 (2017): 149-152.
Smith, Troy E. “The Compound Republic—if you can Keep It: Martha Derthick’s Empiricism and the Value of Federalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 47.2 (2017): 153-170.
Bulman-Pozen, Jessica. “Unbundling Federalism: Colorado’s Legalization of Marijuana and Federalism’s Many Forms.” U. Colo. L. Rev. 85 (2014): 1067.
Marks, Gary. “Academic Appointments.” Comparative Political Studies 35.8 (2016): 879-892.