Lesson 15: Federalism and Today’s Supreme Court
In this lesson, we will discuss how the Supreme Court’s decisions have not been
as clear-cut in favor of the federal government as they once were, with some
decisions showing a trend towards States’ Rights. We will look at how the
Supreme Court ruled on several big issues in recent decades, including on
immigration, health care, same-sex marriage, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Under Chief Justice Marshall, the trend was towards a strong national
government and you could count on him to decide that way in every case. But
today, it appears the trend is more towards the states.
Take the Gun-Free School Zones Act in
1990, for example. When the national government tried to pass it under the
commerce clause, the Supreme Court decided that banning the possession of guns
near schools had “nothing to do with commerce, or any sort of economic
enterprise.”
However, as we will see, in some decisions,
the Supreme Court has continued to favor the federal government over the states.
In a really important case,
the Supreme Court decided that Arizona had overstepped its powers in
how they handle illegal immigration.
The state does not have the power to
arrest anyone just because they suspect that the person is an illegal immigrant.
In an interesting twist of events,
the Supreme Court was faced with the issue of the individual mandate of the
Affordable Care Act. That is the penalty that the government imposes on
individuals for not having healthcare insurance.
It was expected that the Supreme Court was going to rule that the states
overstepped their powers in requiring the mandate. What it ultimately
determined was that while the mandate is not Constitutional under the commerce
clause, it is when it comes to the government's power to tax.
It had been a long road for same-sex marriage advocates. Some states were
banning same-sex marriages while others were beginning to allow it, one-by-one.
The Supreme Court refused to hear appeals for many years, which allowed states
to continue as they wished on the matter. But then, the Supreme Court finally
decided to hear appeals and in June of 2015, they ruled in favor of same-sex
marriage for the entire nation.
The right to vote may have been granted to all citizens by 1920, but states and
localities had underhanded tricks they often used to deny certain people that
right. Finally, the national government passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965
that placed requirements on these states and localities that had a history of
denying the right to vote to minorities.
A preclearance was required if a locality wanted to change voting procedures or
rezone the districts. In that way, these local governments would have to keep
their voting procedures consistent and allow minorities to vote.
However in 2013,
the Supreme Court went the other way on preclearance because the original law
was based on data that was now obsolete.