States cp ddi 2012


Federalism does not protect individual rights – too many internal government disagreements



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Federalism does not protect individual rights – too many internal government disagreements


Alfred Stepan, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, the founding Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), and the Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL) at Columbia University, ’99, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 10, No. 4

Riker sees the demos-constraining aspect of federalism (and the weak politywide¶ political parties normally associated with federalism) as basically good, because¶ it can help protect individual rights from being infringed by the central¶ government's potential for producing populist majorities. 5 But when examined¶ from the point of view of equality and efficacy, both of which are as important¶ to the consolidation of democracy as is liberty, the picture becomes more¶ complicated. The deviation from the one citizen-one vote principle that¶ federalism necessarily implies may be seen as a violation of the principle of¶ equality. Overrepresentation in the upper house, combined with constitutional¶ provisions requiring a supermajority to pass certain kinds of legislation, could,¶ in certain extreme cases, lead to a situation in which legislators representing less¶ than 10 percent of the electorate are able to thwart the wishes of the vast¶ majority. This raises serious questions for the efficacious and legitimate¶ functioning of democracy. If one were interested only in creating a system that¶ best reflects the demos and that functions as an effective democracy, a case¶ could be made that the democratic values of participation, decentralization, and¶ equality would be better addressed in a unitary system that has decentralized¶ participation than in a federal system. But if a polity has great linguistic¶ diversity, is multinational, and is very large, its chances of being a democracy¶ are much better if it adopts a federal system.
AT: MISC (generic can’t solve)
Federalism is too rigid and can’t solve practical problems.

Erin Ryan, Assistant Professor, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William & Mary, J.D. from Harvard Law school, ’07, Maryland Law Review, “Federalism and the Tug of War Within:¶ Seeking Checks and Balance in the¶ Interjurisdictional Gray Area,” Vol. 66, No. 3



In perhaps the most famous rhetorical gesture of the New Federalism,¶ 1 Chief Justice Rehnquist opined that “[t]he Constitution requires a¶ distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.”2 And yet,¶ even conceding the value of the federalism principles thereby implied,¶ we have yet to seriously reckon with the question that hangs¶ after the rhetorical satiety dissipates: What about everything in between?¶ The question makes a simple point about a complex body of jurisprudence—¶ the Supreme Court’s controversial “New Federalism” decisions—¶ which, in essence, is that the New Federalism breeds¶ controversy precisely because it imposes an overly simple theoretical¶ model on a complex area of law. Just as such critical legal fields as¶ environmental, public health, and national security law have begun to¶ embrace the need for greater interconnectivity in the management of¶ regulatory problems that span multiple jurisdictions, the New Federalism¶ decisions chart a course toward greater jurisdictional separation,¶ setting the stage for conflict and confusion. This Article argues that¶ American federalism can ably weather this storm, but it will require¶ that we (1) recognize the interjurisdictional zone that so complicates¶ the project; (2) better understand the tensions between underlying¶ federalism values there exacerbated; and (3) articulate an administrable¶ means of mediating between them so as to best realize the ultimate¶ objectives of our constitutional design.¶ This the New Federalism fails to do, as have preceding interpretive¶ movements that espoused similar ideals until they too were overcome¶ by competing federalism concerns for which their theories¶ could not account. In this most recent round, the Court’s reasoning¶ has proceeded from a model of state-federal relations based on a severe¶ construction of dual sovereignty, the constitutional principle by¶ which regulatory authority is allocated between the independently¶ functioning federal and state governments. Under this strict-separationist¶ model, state and federal governments are idealized as operating¶ in mutually exclusive spheres of jurisdiction, without overlap.¶ Regulatory matters are styled as properly local or national concerns,¶ state and federal authority is segregated accordingly, and the Tenth¶ Amendment polices the supposed bright-line boundary between¶ them. The distinguishing characteristics of the New Federalism decisions¶ are premised on this ideal, which stands in contrast to much of¶ the existing map of American government (so characterized by areas¶ of concurrent or interlocking state and federal jurisdiction that its¶ dual sovereignty has been likened to the intertwining layers of a marble¶ cake3). Nevertheless, the New Federalism’s approach has altered¶ the American federalism discourse, changing the way we think about¶ the allocation of state and federal authority in modern regulatory¶ endeavors.

Federalism only delays responses to problems.


Erin Ryan, Assistant Professor, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William & Mary, J.D. from Harvard Law school, ’07, Maryland Law Review, “Federalism and the Tug of War Within:¶ Seeking Checks and Balance in the¶ Interjurisdictional Gray Area,” Vol. 66, No. 3

Although they have attracted intense academic attention, these¶ changes are hardly esoteric matters of interest only to judges and law¶ professors. For better or worse (and in different respects, probably¶ both), they would alter the way that Congress approaches lawmaking,4¶ and the way that the Executive approaches administration.5 At least¶ in the latter case, the answer may well be “for worse” because, by many¶ accounts, the ideals associated with the New Federalism’s project of¶ better differentiating state from national authority may have contributed¶ to the delayed federal response to the devastating aftermath of¶ Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. News reports indicate that, as¶ pressure mounted on the White House to assume responsibility for¶ key tasks not performed at the local level, the federal response was¶ paralyzed as senior advisors stalled in debate over the federalism implications¶ of providing the needed assistance.6 This Article takes the¶ Katrina aftermath as a primary example of how the New Federalism’s¶ ideological trajectory7 can obstruct interjurisdictional problem-solving¶ by confusing, rather than clarifying, the proper roles of national and¶ local regulatory authorities. But the Katrina aftermath is only the¶ most mediagenic example of confusion spawned by the New Federalism’s¶ intolerance for interjurisdictional complexity. Similar confusion¶ has arisen in other like contexts, ranging from environmental to antiterrorism¶ programs, resulting in uncertain policymaking efforts and¶ New Federalism-inspired legal challenges to regulatory partnerships¶ that link state and federal actors in related spheres of authority.8



AT: Public goods



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