Constitutional Federalism: Labor's Role in Displacing Places to Benefit Persons

Abstract

During 1980s, federalism was significantly altered by a defining contest between persons and places over nature of federal union. At issue was extent which the authority of can be extended to persons of citizens (Federalist 15) and, thereby, supersede sovereign state powers and local self-government. Places lost, leaving them with no workable doctrine defend state-local powers against federal power. U.S. Supreme Court seemed abandon field, abdicating its role as umpire of federal system (Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority 1985). decisive action occurred in 1980s, in part, because battle lines were drawn starkly. On one side, President Ronald Reagan and soonto-be Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, among others, adhered view of federalism expressed in Reagan's first inaugural address: the Federal Government did not create States; States created Federal Government. On other side were adherents view expressed by Senator William H. Seward in 1850: The States are not parties Constitution as States; it is Constitution of people of United States. As Justice Harry A. Blackmun later put it: Ours ... is a federal republic, conceived on principle of a supreme federal power and constituted first and foremost of citizens, not sovereign (Coleman v. Thompson 1991). debate became acrimonious in 1985 when U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III suggested American Bar Association that Court had violated original intent of federal Constitution by selectively applying provisions of U.S. Bill of Rights states via Fourteenth Amendment. This provoked an unusual public rebuke from Justices William J. Brennan, Jr., and John Paul Stevens. executive director of American Civil Liberties Union called Meese the James Watt of Constitution. Given some of underlying issues and line-up of actors, state and local officials were hard put defend federalism.