Publius: The Journal of Federalism - current issue

The State of American Federalism 2007-2008: Resurgent State Influence in the National Policy Process and Continued State Policy Innovation

Dinan, J. — 2008-06-04

States played a prominent role in policy-making in 2007–2008 in several respects. States were more successful in securing relief from federal directives regarding the National Guard, homeland security, education, and welfare than in any prior year in the Bush presidency; they were unable to fend off several new mandates, however, particularly concerning the State Children's Health Insurance Program. States also continued to be the primary innovators in areas such as immigration, environmental protection, and health care, although they encountered new constraints in the form of federal court challenges and agency rulings. The Supreme Court made no notable contributions to the post-1992 decisions that initially curbed and recently deferred to federal power; however, several rulings interpreting federal statutes and reviewing state acts had important federalism implications.

Dispersed Federalism as a New Regional Governance for Homeland Security

Roberts, P. S. — 2008-06-04

State and local officials complain about their lack of involvement in disaster plans issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Their complaints point to a common theme: the reorganization that produced the DHS complicated shared governance. States and localities carry out most of the work of homeland security, but the federal government's guidelines and grants shape much of what subnational governments do. This article offers an interpretation of the complaints of emergency management officials and a proposal for dispersing federal homeland security personnel and resources out of Washington, DC, to FEMA regions. Dispersing federal agencies to the regions they oversee offers an alternative to pure centralization and decentralization that combines the task and location specificity of major approaches to federalism.

Rebels and Their Causes: State Resistance to No Child Left Behind

Shelly, B. — 2008-06-04

The formal state resistance to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may surprise scholars of federalism, who have generally found that states rarely resort to legislative and legal challenges to federal regulation. This article considers that factors influence states’ level of resistance to NCLB. Using an original data set, I estimate a series of ordered logit models with a dependent variable measuring state legislation and legal action against NCLB and find that states with lower poverty rates and a larger Hispanic population offer greater resistance. The discussion uses these results to suggest five factors towards which scholars may look to predict future formal challenges.

Public Opinion on Issues of Federalism in 2007: A Bush Plus?

Kincaid, J., Cole, R. L. — 2008-06-04

A 2007 trend survey revealed more Americans saying that the federal government gives them the least for their money and has too much power. The proportions citing high trust in the federal government and saying the federal government needs more power were low. The proportions holding positive attitudes toward state and local government were high, though local government scored best on most questions. More than half of Americans reported that their state is treated with the respect it deserves in the US federal system, compared with less than half of Canadians stating the same about their province. Slightly more than half of the US public judged three major federalism actions of President George W. Bush to have been helpful to state and local governments.

State Policy Innovation and the Federalism Implications of Direct Democracy

Ferraiolo, K. — 2008-06-04

As state policy activism has flourished in recent years, increasingly that activism has taken place through the direct democracy process. While winning ballot measures often have implications for federal–state relations, federalism issues have largely been ignored in the direct democracy literature. I address this oversight by investigating how the outcomes of direct democracy politics affect the relationships among citizens, states, and the federal government. My analysis focuses on measures proposed over the last decade that represent either a response to perceived federal inaction or a challenge to federal policy. The findings suggest that initiatives have different effects on federal–state relations depending on the form they take. When ballot measures seeking to fill a policy void lead to federal action, they promote intergovernmental policy consensus and narrow the distance between public opinion and federal policy; if the federal government fails to address the issue at stake, additional state innovation will result and voter preferences and federal policy outcomes will move farther apart. Meanwhile, initiatives that challenge federal law create conflict and polarization between states and the federal government and widen the distance between public opinion and federal policy. The passage of initiatives in both categories heightens opinion-policy congruence at the state level as officials are often eager to publicly support and implement the results of successful ballot measures.

Election Reform after HAVA: Voter Verification in Congress and the States

Palazzolo, D., Moscardelli, V. G., Patrick, M., Rubin, D. — 2008-06-04

Requiring voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper record (VVPR) has been the most prominent election reform issue in Congress and across the states since the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Whereas HAVA emerged from a bipartisan process that included cooperation and input from state and local government officials, VVPR legislation represents a more coercive brand of federalism that has divided the parties and evoked opposition by state and local government organizations. Meanwhile, twenty-nine states adopted the VVPR from 2003 to 2007. Using a logistic regression model, informed by a theory of state policy activism, we find that adoption of VVPR legislation was most likely in states with moralistic political cultures, election reform activists, and professionalized legislatures controlled by Democratic majorities.

Federalism and Front-loading

Busch, A. E. — 2008-06-04

"Front-loading" primaries and caucuses—the movement of state delegate selection contests to the beginning of the nomination calendar—is problematic for the integrity of the presidential nominating system. Because it results from decentralized decision making by self-interested states, front-loading also poses a problem for federalism. Indeed, most proposed remedies for front-loading would impinge on federalism in some manner. In analyzing those remedies, one must assess their interaction with federalism both procedurally and substantively. For example, a federally imposed national primary would be harmful to federalism on both dimensions; regional primaries negotiated among states would be best for federalism procedurally but are of dubious efficacy; the national parties have an ambiguous relationship to federalism; and a change in federal campaign finance rules would seek to combine a centralized process with a decentralized result. The best solution might be to use available central levers to try to change campaign dynamics and thus the incentives for states to schedule their primaries early.

At the Invitation of the Court: Eminent Domain Reform in State Legislatures in the Wake of the Kelo Decision

Sharp, E. B., Haider-Markel, D. — 2008-06-04

The Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo decision upholding a condemnation of private property for economic development purposes sparked a wave of reform legislation in state legislatures. However, there is considerable variation in the extent to which state legislatures restricted the power of eminent domain. This article seeks to account for this variation. It tests hypotheses drawn from the literature on state responses to Supreme Court decisions and research on factors shaping state policy change in the wake of federal actions more generally. The results show support for an organized interests explanation, a need/scope of the problem explanation, and some elements of an explanation featuring institutional characteristics of the state legislature; there are mixed findings with respect to the role of public ideology.

Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and New Federalism Jurisprudence

Banks, C., Blakeman, J. — 2008-06-04

The Rehnquist Court returned power back to the states in rulings that scholars have dubbed "New Federalism." The appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito invite speculation about the future direction of federalism cases in the Supreme Court. A survey of the Roberts Court's federalism rulings discovers that the ideological pathways of new federalism depend upon Justice Kennedy's swing vote and the effects the new appointments have on shaping voting coalitions in light of the vacancies they have filled. Although there is a reconfigured "States’ Rights Five" voting coalition, neither Roberts nor Alito endorses rigid viewpoints about federalism and it remains uncertain if the Court will return to the type of aggressive new federalism which arguably defined the legacy of the Rehnquist Court.

Hamilton's Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism, by Jonathan A. Rodden.

Rockman, B. A. — 2008-06-04

Governing the American State: Congress and the New Federalism, 1877-1929, by Kimberley S. Johnson.

Smith, T. — 2008-06-04

Democratic Laboratories: Policy Diffusion among the American States, by Andrew Karch.

Hird, J. A. — 2008-06-04