American Federalism: From Johnson to Bush

Abstract

Intergovernmental developments for more than twenty-five years have produced a nationcentered federalism--strongly so from 1964 to 1978, somewhat less so from 1969-1988, and a little more so during the past two years. The reasons for this fundamental systemic transformation include: (1) the demise of the earlier, 150-year old, confederative party system and the rise of a political system with weak federative parties, but other more powerful political actors; (2) an operational and local representational renaissance of the states, but also a concomitant decline of state and local political influence in Washington; (3) a steadily centralizing Supreme Court, with only a few pro-state decisions until 1989; and (4) a rapid rise in national preemptions and of a new social regulation that was aimed at state and local governments as much as at the private sector, even as the states were used to implement them. The only real constraint on national activism since 1982 has been budget-driven federalism, not planned reform efforts. The current system then requires political, representational, judicial, and constitutional reforms if the centralizing, cooptive, and permissive features of contemporary federalism are to be corrected.