AP GOVERNMENT
UNIT 1 ESSAY TOPICS AND KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS 2ND
QUARTER
CHAPTER 2 - THE CONSTITUTION CHAPTER 3 - FEDERALISM CHAPTER 21 STATE GOVERNMENT
1. (2006
AP Question) The framers of the United States
Constitution created a legislative system that is bicameral. However, it is
not just bicameral; the framers also established two houses
of distinctly different character and authority.
(a) Discuss two reasons why the framers created a
bicameral legislature.
(b) Identify one power unique to the House of
Representatives and explain why the framers gave the House that power.
(c) Identify one power unique to the Senate and explain why
the framers gave the Senate that power.
2. (2000
AP Question) The Constitution was an attempt to
address problems of decentralization that were experienced under the
Articles of Confederation.
(a) List three problems of decentralized power
that existed under the Articles of
Confederation. For each problem you listed, identify one
solution that the
Constitution provided to address the
problem.
(b)
Some have argued that the tensions between decentralized and centralized power
continue to exist. Support this argument by explaining how one
of the following
illustrates the
continuing tension.
- Environmental policy
-
Gun control
-
Disability access
3. (2001
AP Question) The
However, the meaning of the Constitution has been changed both by formal
and informal methods.
(a) Identify two formal methods for adding amendments to the
Constitution.
(b) Describe two informal
methods that have been used to change the meaning of
the
Constitution. Provide one specific
example for each informal method you describe.
(c) Explain why informal methods are used more
often than the formal amendment process.
4. (2004
AP Question) The power of the federal government relative to
the power of the states has increased since the ratification of
the
Constitution.
a. Describe two of the
following provisions of the Constitution and explain how each has been used over
time to expand federal power.
·
The power to tax and spend
·
The “necessary and proper” or “elastic” clause
·
The commerce clause
b. Explain how one of the
following has increased the power of the federal government relative to the
power of state governments.
·
Americans with Disabilities Act
·
Civil Rights Act of 1964
·
Clean Air Act
5. (2007
AP Question) The framers of the United States Constitution
created a federal system.
(a)
Define federalism
(b)
Select two of the following and explain how each has been used to increase
the power of the federal
government
relative to the states.
·
Categorical grants
·
Federal mandates
·
Selective incorporation
(c) Select
two of the following and explain how each has been used to increase the power
of the states
relative to the federal government.
·
Welfare Reform Act of 1996
·
Block grants
·
Tenth Amendment
6. (2002
AP Question) Political
institutions can present both obstacles and opportunities to racial minority
groups in their efforts to gain
political influence.
(a)
Identify one
feature of one of the following and explain how that feature has presented
obstacles to
racial
minority groups in their efforts to achieve political goals. (choose Federalism)
· Federalism
· The United States political
party system
· The United States electoral
system
(b)
Identify one
feature of one of the following and explain how that feature might present
opportunities
to
racial minority groups in their efforts to achieve political goals. (choose Federalism)
· Federalism
· The United States political
party system
· The United States electoral
system
7. Explain what is meant by the “Madisonian Model” and how it is incorporated within the
Constitution.
Provide specifics from class and your
text to support your answer.
8. Explain the major issues between the
Federalists and the Anti-Federalists in the debates over ratification of
the Constitution.
Provide specifics from class and your text to support your answer.
9. Explain how dual federalism can be defined as
a “layer cake” and how cooperative federalism can be defined
as a “marble cake”.
Provide specifics from your text and class to support your answer.
10. Article IV of the Constitution regulates
relations among the states through the “full faith and credit clause, the
privileges and
immunities clause, and the interstate extradition clause. Briefly explain how each of these
“regulates”
relations among the states and the national government. Provide an example for each.
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Anti-Federalists: opposed the new Constitution, feared the new
Constitution would erode fundamental liberties, and argued that the new
Constitution was a classbased document serving the
economic elite.
Articles of
Confederation: the document which
outlines the voluntary agreement between states and was adopted as the first
plan for a permanent union of the
Bill of
Rights: the first ten Amendments to
the Constitution passed after ratification specifically protecting individual
liberties to fulfill promises made by the
Federalists to the Anti-Federalists
in return for their support.
Checks and
balances: each branch required the
consent of the others for many of its decisions.
Consent of
the governed: people must agree on
who their rulers will be.
Constitution: a nation's basic law creating institutions, dividing
power, and providing guarantees to citizens.
Declaration
of
Equal Rights
Amendment: was first proposed in
1923, passed by Congress in 1972, but was not ratified by three-fourths of the states;
this amendment mandated
equality of rights under the law regardless of gender.
Factions: groups of people, currently known as political
parties or interest groups, who arise as a result of unequal distribution of
wealth to seize the reins of
government in their own interest.
Federalist
Papers: articles written to
convince others to support the new constitution.
Federalists: argued for ratification of the Constitution by
writing the Federalist Papers; included Madison, Hamilton, and Jay.
Judicial review: the courts have the power to decide whether the
actions of the legislative and executive branches of state and national
governments are in
accordance with the Constitution.
Limited
government: clear restrictions on
what rulers could do and which safeguard natural rights.
Marbury v.
Natural
rights: these are rights
to which people are entitled by natural law, including life, liberty, and
property.
Republic: a system based on the consent of the governed where
power is exercised by representatives of the public.
Separation
of powers: each branch of government
would be independent of the other.
Shays'
Rebellion: a series of armed attacks
on courthouses to prevent judges from foreclosing on farms.
powers.
Virginia
Plan: a plan by some of the delegates
to the Constitutional Convention to provide each state with a share of
Congressional seats based on its share of the
population.
Writ of habeas
corpus: this enables people who are
detained by authorities to secure an immediate inquiry and reasons why they
have been detained.
Block grants: broad program grants given more or less
automatically to states and communities, which exercise discretion in how the
money is spent.
Categorical
grants: grants that can be used only
for specific purposes or categories of state and local spending.
Cooperative
federalism: where state and the
national government responsibilities are mingled and blurred like a marble
cake, powers and policies are shared.
Dual
federalism: where states and the
national government each remain supreme within their own spheres of power, much
like a layer cake.
Elastic
clause: the statement in the
Constitution which says that Congress has the power to make all laws necessary
and proper for carrying out its duties.
Enumerated
powers: powers of Congress found in
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Extradition: the Constitution requires each state to return a
person charged with a crime in another state to that state for trial or
imprisonment.
Federalism: a system of shared power between two or more levels
of government.
Fiscal
federalism: the pattern of spending,
taxing, and providing grants in the federal system.
Formula
grants: a type of categorical grant
where states and local governments do not apply for a grant but are given funds
on the basis of a formula.
Full faith
and credit: Article IV of the
Constitution requires states to provide reciprocity toward other states' public
acts, records, and civil judicial proceedings.
Gibbons
v.
Implied
powers: powers beyond Congress'
enumerated powers which ensure that it can carry out its duties.
Intergovernmental
relations: the term used to describe
the entire set of interactions among national, state, and local governments.
McCulloch
v.
Privileges
and immunities: the Constitution
prohibits states from discriminating against citizens of other states.
Project
grant: categorical grants awarded on
the basis of competitive applications.
Supremacy
clause: Article VI of the
Constitution states that the supreme law of the land is the Constitution, the
laws of the national government, and treaties.
Tenth
Amendment: specifies that powers not
delegated to the national government are reserved for the state government or
the people.
Unitary government: a system where all power resides in the central government.
City manager: official appointed by an elected city council and
given the responsibility of implementing policy decisions.
Council of
governments: association of officials
from various localities that facilitates discussion of mutual problems and
planning joint, cooperative activities.
Dillon’s
rule: initially enunciated by Judy
John Dillon, states that local governments have only those powers that are
explicitly given to them by the states.
Direct
democracy: a method of policymaking
in the
Home rule: power of cities to write their own charters and to
change them without permission from the state legislature.
Initiative: direct democracy technique that allows proposed
constitutional amendments to be placed on a statewide ballot when enough
signatures are obtained.
Lieutenant
governor: an executive officer of
state government, often elected by voters; typically presides over the state
senate.
Line-Item
veto: power of governors to veto only
certain parts of a bill while allowing the rest to pass into law.
Local
charter: an organizational statement
and grant of authority from the state to a local government.
Merit Plan: judicial selection process whereby the governor
appoints the state’s judges from a list of persons recommended by the state bar
or a committee of jurists and other officials.
Recall: direct democracy technique that allows voters to
remove an official from office prior to completion of an elected term.
Referendum: direct democracy technique that allows citizens to
pass a bill originally proposed and approved in the state legislature.
Sub-national
governments: state and local
governments.
Town meeting: a form of direct democracy where all voting-age
adults in a community gather annually to make public policy.
Federalism
and the Courts
The law plays a
defining role in federalism. The Constitution
expressly grants certain powers to the federal government, states that it may
enact any laws that are "necessary and proper" to exercising these
powers, and then (in the tenth amendment) asserts that all powers not expressly
granted to the national government are retained by the states. In practice,
these are not clear lines. The Supreme Court has had to determine when state
activities trespass on areas that have explicitly been preempted by the federal
government and when federal acts encroach on states' reserved powers. Over the
course of
|
FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Tenth Amendment |
Most of the rulings
that distinguish between federal and state domains have hinged on
interpretation of the commerce clause. Decisions on cases that fall in the
overlap between state police power and federal authority under the commerce
clause continue to evolve. Indeed, after decades in which federal authority
over virtually everything prevailed on commerce clause grounds, one of the most
recent Supreme Court decisions in this area overturned a federal law related to
guns near school property in part on the grounds that it strayed into state
police powers. The fourteenth amendment has also been an area where courts have
actively defined the federal-state relationship. The guarantees of equal access
and equal protection in that portion of the law have been particularly significant
in affecting how states may deal with federal grants-in-aid.
|
FindLaw:U.S. Constitution:
Fourteenth Amendment |
The courts serve as the referees between
governments, interpreting and expanding on the relationship originally
delineated by the Constitution. This interpretation has been in the
hands of men (and, recently, women) with very different temperaments and views
of the proper roles of the different levels of government and of the courts.
Judicial conservatives (not necessarily the same as political conservatives)
tend to seek to identify the intent of framers of laws, rather than to
reinterpret them in light of changing civic contexts. Conversely, judicial
activists (who may be politically conservative as well as liberal) are more
willing to develop law in new directions in response to changing circumstances
rather than waiting for legislators to act to clarify areas that are obscure or
where past laws and rulings are silent. Even when the court includes activists,
however, judicial decision-making is inherently conservative in the sense that
it depends, above all, on precedent. In order for laws to be justly
administered, there is a need for consistency and predictability. Hence the doctrine of stare decisis --letting
past decisions stand.
Because judicial decision-making is
intentionally less volatile than political action, the courts often seem out of
sync with the political tenor of an era. In theory, the Supreme Court is
protected from political winds by lifetime appointments. At least once,
however, the court changed its tune as a result of a credible political threat.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, angered at repeated overturning of New Deal
legislation by a court that was protective of state and commercial interests,
decided the best way to accelerate his policies would be to appoint his own
justices to the court. To accomplish this, he proposed increasing the size of
the Supreme Court. Although this was never done, his effort seems to have been
effective in making the court more amenable to his agenda.
Depending on how you interpret the
activities of courts, the decisions may be seen in several ways:
- they allow a static constitution to evolve as the world changes
while keeping true to the spirit of the original drafters;
- they reflect changing economic and social norms;
- they clarify the intent of Congress, which has the last say in
what is allowed;
- they
reflect prevalent political agendas and the interests of power elites.
History
of
This section presents descriptions of the evolution of the relationship between
the states and the national government. It includes a chronology of critical
points in the evolution of
Descriptions: cakes and controversy
Laurence J. O'Toole (1993:29) points out that "history and theory have …been closely linked" in intergovernmental relations. Although there is some controversy over the degree to which the levels of government were truly separate in their actions during the first century of the republic, there is general agreement that there has been a progression in the shift in power since the founding of the country, away from the states and towards the national government.
Analysts and historians of federalism consider the changing nature of
authority and flow of resources between national and state governments. Most
analysts begin with characterizations of the federal system as either dual or
unitary.
|
Models of Intergovernmental Relations (Wright,
1988, Hamilton & Wells, 1990) |
|
In a dual, or coordinate system, the separate levels of
government have distinct, autonomous spheres of authority. |
|
Compound systems include
overlapping, interdependent governments and are characterized by bargaining.
They may be cooperative or competitive. |
|
In unitary, centralized
or national systems, states are
subordinate to the national government and the relationship is hierarchical. |
|
More Divisions of Power (Diamond, 1974) |
|
Confederal :
states retain sovereign power, national government is dependent on their
will. |
|
Federal: states
retain powers within a certain sphere and national government has power in a different
sphere |
|
Unitary or national government retains all power, with
states dependent on its will. |
|
Evolving Divisions of Power ( |
|
Dual Federalism of the |
|
Dual Federalism Serving
Commerce (1861-1930): "to perfect the free
economy". |
|
Cooperative Federalism
(1930-1960): Shared functions, focus on
providing services, broadly collaborative patterns. |
|
CreativeFederalism, Picket-Fence Federalism (1960-1980): |
|
Cooptive Federalism and the Reaction (1981-)
Devolution, deregulation, proposed swaps, supply-side reductions,
deficit dominates. |
|
According to Diamond (1974:47), |
Chronology
Here is a timeline of important periods in the evolution of federalism, with some discussion of the characteristics of these periods.
|
Founding to Civil
War |
|
|
Post-Bellum Expansion
and Progressive Era |
|
|
New Deal and World
War II, Postwar Prosperity |
|
|
Great Society and |
|
|
New Federalisms |
|
|
Founding to Civil War |
||
|
1760-1780s |
Declaration of
Independence, Articles of Confederation Commerce clause |
Hamilton and his colleagues, the original Federalists,
believed only a strong central government could provide the new nation with
the economic, political and military cohesiveness it would need to maintain
its independence. The antifederalists saw such a
government as the greatest threat to that new-found liberty, and feared that
by creating a strong central government they were replacing one tyranny with
another. For them, government of daily life was best carried out by groups
that were closely bound by ties of kinship, belief and history--states and
local governments. The national government would be the best locus for issues
of diversity, with debate taking place among the states |
|
1790-1800s |
Tenth amendment--reserve clause |
Political parties formed initially around the two
positions: federalists in support of a strong national government and the
Democrat-Republican party opposing the centralizing tendencies. The first change
of parties, Jefferson succeeding |
|
1810s |
|
The victory of Jeffersonian ideals was short-lived. The
new government was increasingly active in commerce with the establishment of
a bank, and the controversy it engendered served to reframe the Constitution.
In ruling on this and other matters, the |
|
1819 |
McCulloch v. construes "necessary and proper" to favor expansion of national authority |
In its 1819 ruling, McCulloch v. "The government is acknowledged by all to
be one of enumerated powers. The principle that it can exercise only the
powers granted to it...is now universally admitted. But the question
respecting the extent of the powers actually granted is perpetually arising,
and will probably continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist."
Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. |
|
1820s-1830s |
States clash over tariffs. |
The Jacksonians challenged the emerging economic dominance of central government and banking powers and sought to strengthen states and individual power. No simple restoration of an agrarian order was possible, however. In 1830, Northern and Southern states, always at economic odds, clashed over tariffs and, ultimately, slavery. Hamilton's fears that state factions would set aside property rights seemed to be confirmed by the Jacksonians, who opposed policies of the national government that favored strong commercial interests as antidemocratic, while equating states' economic control with personal liberty and economic decentralization. Although elected on a platform of states' rights, when a crisis of national unity threatened Andrew Jackson asserted the primary importance of maintaining a union. Opposing the tariffs, John C. Calhoun argued in support of the doctrine of nullification, warning that national majorities could override the liberty of minorities unless states had the right to nullify tyrannical laws. (Peterson, 1995). This "trial of sectionalism" as Beer calls it (1993) ultimately culminated in the Civil War. |
|
|
Doctrine of dormant commerce clause articulated in Cooley
v. Board of Wardens |
The notion of a "negative" or
"dormant" Commerce Clause was articulated in Cooley v. Board of
Wardens, giving states limited authority over local aspects of interstate
commerce, absent conflicting federal legislation and provided it was
otherwise within state authority. The ruling left final decisions to the
Court, which would judge whether the matter under consideration was
nationwide in scope, in which case state laws could not have jurisdiction
(Benson:35). In the absence of Congressional action related to commerce
(according to |
|
1854 |
Pierce vetoes land grant for mentally handicapped |
"If Congress is to make
provision for [paupers], the fountains of charity will be dried up at home,
and the several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social
wants of their people, may themselves through the strong temptations, which
appear to the States as individuals, become humble suppliants for the bounty
of the Federal Government, reversing their true relation to this Union."
(Congressional Globe, 33d Congress, 1st session (May 1854) pp. 1061-63, cited
in Vasey, 1958: 270-271) |
|
1862 |
Morrill Act-land grant colleges |
The Morrill Act of 1862 providing for land grants to
states to support public institutions of higher education,was the first time the national government
participated financially in a program of state welfare. |
|
1860s |
Civil war |
Doctrine of nullification laid to rest by force of arms. The most important national-state interactions in the first century
revolved around slavery and its consequences. From the start, slavery
embodied a fundamental contradiction between economic and personal liberty:
humans treated as property. The issue repeatedly set South and North in
opposition to one another: over how slaves should be counted; whether new
territories could choose to permit slavery; and how they were to be treated
when passing through non-slave states. The Civil War cast the national
government as the protector of civil liberty against state incursions, with
the fourteenth amendment the conduit through which national standards of
personal rights were eventually funneled to the states. For the defeated
South, however, these actions were seen as an absolute violation of personal
and property rights by the national government. Conservative courts support
states' unwillingness to act on civil rights. |
|
Post-Bellum Expansion and Progressive Era
Cutting across all levels of government, progressive political reforms included a movement towards more direct democratic devices such as secret ballots and initiatives, managerial reforms at all levels of government, a merit system, antitrust legislation, and an income tax. Like the antifederalists and Jacksonians before them, the Progressives sought to correct an imbalance between economic growth and personal liberty. Industrialization, urbanization and immigration created new problems that existing institutions were ill-suited to solve. State and local governments were absorbed with these problems, which seemed to be exacerbated by corruption and collusion between corporations and the national government. Progressive responses to the problems of modernization often began at local and state levels, in the governments that were struggling to cope with the consequences of the economic changes. Unlike earlier reactions to economic centralization, however, the reform agenda was then taken to the national level. |
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|
1880s 1887 |
First affirmative commerce clause actions by Congress after court rejects state laws on railroads, food, common carriers, utility regulation Interstate Commerce Act |
As statute law replaced common law in states attempting to deal with the social and economic changes, efforts to develop uniform legal doctrines across the states were finally abandoned as unconstitutional (MacMahon:37). National regulation started in late 19th century, with such measures as the 1884 animal industry act for control of disease in cattle. State laws were often the stimulus for these national regulations. State actions to regulate railroads, rejected by the Supreme Court in 1886, led to the interstate commerce act in 1887. Similarly, late 1890 and early 1900 laws related to food, common carriers and utility regulation all led to national laws in the face of the Court's continued rejection of state actions. "Instances have not been wanting where the concept of interstate commerce has been broadened to exclude state action, and narrowed to exclude Congressional action." Felix Frankfurter, The Commerce Clause 76 (1937) |
|
1887 |
The first program of cash rather than land grants |
A program creating agricultural experiment stations
included oversight that is a prototype for modern grants-in-aid: state
accountability through audits and a requirement that the Secretary of the
Interior certify state eligibility for the program and withold
grants if conditions were not met (Hale and Palley,
1981:7-8). |
|
1890s |
State railroad commissions, antitrust laws and lottery laws preempted 1894 income tax overturned |
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 were part of the expansion of federal authority over commerce that took place during that period, often at the expense of states. Thirty state railroad commissions, for example, were replaced by a federal authority, as were existing state antitrust and lottery laws. (Collins, 1983). Although an income tax had been levied during the Civil War, the Supreme Court overturned an 1894 income tax provision as unconstitutional because it was not proportional. |
|
1900s |
"Stream of commerce" doctrine developed in price fixing ruling Mann Act |
A 1905 case involving price fixing by meat packers served
to establish the doctrine of "stream of commerce", which applied
national laws to any part of an activity if the whole took place among the
states. Emboldened by these precedents, Congress enacted the Pure Food and
Drug act in 1906. This was a dramatic movement into an area of traditional
public health that had generally been under police powers of the states. The
courts sustained such "federal police powers" (Shuman: 40) expansion
into that area in the teens and twenties, upholding the Mann act and the pure
food and drug act of 1906. |
|
1913 |
16th amendment--income tax |
The sixteenth amendment, adopted in 1913, stands as a
watershed for modern federalism. The size of the tax was extremely modest by
today's standards, but it created the foundation for twentieth century
federalism, with its emphasis on intergovernmental transfers and the use of
taxing and spending powers to further national policies. |
|
1910s |
tax incentives adopted, upheld--narcotics tax |
Despite uncertainty as to the constitutionality of such a
course, the national power to tax was quickly used to affect policy whether
through incentives or prohibitions. In doing this the national government soon
acted in areas once considered the domain of state police powers, as with a
narcotics tax that was upheld in 1919 (Lund, 1963). |
|
1922 |
Court rules that commerce disregards state lines . |
By 1922, the Court ruled that commerce as a unit
disregards state lines and national control of commerce--even intrastate--is
not an invasion of state authority (p.115) However, state laws affecting
health tended to be upheld in face of this. (Wright:116) |
|
1920s
|
11 grant-in-aid programs Court rules that federal grants in aid are voluntary so it has no jurisdiction. |
As the country moved from a primarily rural, agrarian society to an urban industrial one, large-scale social institutions developed to cushion some of the worst social dislocations caused by the changes. These were primarily private or local government --or party--activity. Even with the capacity to levy progressive income taxes, national efforts at social welfare programs were highly tentative at first. Nonetheless, by 1920 there were eleven grants-in-aid programs. Challenges to the legality of such grants were rejected by the court on
the grounds that participation in the programs was voluntary on the part of
the states and thus did not violate separation of powers. (O'Toole, 1993:7)
The earliest such program in health, the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Act maternity
and infancy health program aroused much opposition from state and
professional groups, and was allowed to die in 1929. ( |
Those Unfunded Mandates
By
David S. Broder
Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A25
Ten years ago this week, Congress was in the final
stage of a truly bitter battle. A Senate debate that began on Jan. 12 stretched
over 15 days and forced 44 roll-call votes. The House debated the companion
bill for eight days in February and had to dispose of more than 30 amendments
before reaching final passage. It took five more weeks of difficult
negotiations to get agreement on a final version, signed into law by President
Bill Clinton on March 22, 1995.
And what was this highly controversial piece of
legislation? It has the sexless title of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of
1995, or UMRA.
Basically, it was no more than a requirement that
committees of Congress, when writing a bill that would impose new duties on
states, local governments or private companies, obtain an estimate of the
additional costs they would entail and make those parts of their report on the
legislation.
Under the newly approved procedure, any mandate that
would cost state or local governments more than $50 million a year, or private
business $100 million, would be subject to a point of order during debate --
and legislators would have to vote specifically that the benefit was worth the
cost.
This modest nod to the interests of the other levels
of government was bitterly resisted by Washington-knows-best legislators.
Democrats, whose 40-year grip on the House of Representatives had just been
shattered by the Republican revolution of 1994, were overwhelmingly opposed.
Dirk Kempthorne, then a
freshman Republican senator, recalled this week that he could find only two
co-sponsors for his UMRA bill when he first introduced it in 1993 and was
dressed down by the powerful West Virginia Democrat Robert C. Byrd for even
offering such legislation. But Kempthorne, who had
served previously as mayor of
So how has it worked? Kempthorne
told the National League of Cities convention Monday that it has been a
success, that "it fundamentally changed the relationship" between
Others are not so certain. The CBO testimony cited by Kempthorne said that while UMRA drove Congress "to
either eliminate mandates or lower their costs" in several pieces of
legislation, exemptions and restrictions that were part of the law have meant
that "some federal requirements that state and local officials view as
burdensome to their jurisdictions are not considered unfunded mandates under
UMRA." These big programs include the No Child Left Behind school reform
act, the legislation guaranteeing special-education benefits for disabled
children, the Medicaid program and the post-2000-election law mandating
improved voting equipment -- no small matters.
A similar study by the Government Accountability
Office reached a similar conclusion, noting that expensive conditions placed on
such programs as No Child Left Behind are beyond the reach of UMRA, because
states can theoretically decline to participate.
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who followed Kempthorne to the League of Cities podium, painted a much
bleaker picture. Alexander, a former governor of
He noted that the National Conference of State
Legislatures "has identified $29 billion in federal cost shifts to states
in transportation, health care, education, environment, homeland security,
election laws and in other areas." The ability of elected officials to
manage their own budgets has been further narrowed by the proliferation of
federal court consent decrees, which, he said, now dictate how "to run
Medicaid in
Alexander has a package of changes he says would shift
the power balance back toward the states and cities. The problem, he says, is
that "Democrats, still stuck in the New Deal, are reflexively searching
for national solutions to local problems [and] Republicans, having found
ourselves in charge, have decided it is more blessed to impose our views,
rather than to liberate Americans from Washington."
It may take another grass-roots
rebellion to shake up
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Connolly Attacks Unfunded
Mandates
By Lisa Rein
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; Page B01
The leader of Virginia's largest local government testified before a congressional committee that Fairfax spent $543 million last fiscal year complying with federal mandates to provide cleaner water and air, collect and dispose of solid and hazardous waste, incarcerate illegal immigrants, provide health care for the uninsured, implement new voting rules and pay for No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law. But the government reimbursed the county for just $148 million, leaving taxpayers to shoulder the rest.
"You're asking local taxpayers to bear the burden of your good intentions," Connolly (D), also president of the Virginia Association of Counties, told members of the House Committee on Government Reform. "Anything you make us do that you don't fully fund is an unfunded mandate."
The committee is reviewing the effects of a 10-year-old federal law, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, which attempted to limit the fiscal burden of federal laws and regulations on local and state governments. The law set cost thresholds for complying in an effort to reduce the strain.
But it has many exemptions and loopholes, some officials and lawmakers said, and few state and local governments have gotten much of a break. Instead, many federal mandates are increasing, stretching budgets and jeopardizing property tax relief in a hot real estate market.
"We don't have a choice. We have to meet the mandates," Connolly
said. "But we have to offset them by cutting other services or increasing
taxes, neither of which is very palatable." Fairfax and several other
Maryland Del. John A. Hurson (D-Montgomery), president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, also testified that the law does little to protect states from increasing costs shifted from the federal government. He cited the Bush administration's proposed cuts to the Medicaid program, particularly for nursing home care, as his chief concern.
"Medicaid is eating away at state budgets," Hurson told the committee. "People act like it's a partnership people can choose to participate in. But it's not. It's a required expense."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the committee
chairman and a former chairman of the
"We're looking at revisiting it to give state and local governments more protections," he said.
At
"That would be 20 cents on the tax rate," Connolly replied, noting
that additional mandates from
"That does bring it home,"
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