States
Constitution is non-specific
Family laws, professional standards
Education, health, transportation, economic development, and criminal justice
What do they do?
Constitution is non-specific
Family laws, professional standards
Education, health, transportation, economic development, and criminal justice
What do they do?
Education
HHS
Public Safety
Transortation
Government
Other
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Texas Expenditures, FY 2011
40 states require balanced budgets
Project revenue and expenses, fluctuations
Finances
40 states require balanced budgets
Project revenue and expenses, fluctuations
Projected Revenue for Texas, 2014-2015
Finances
Weak in the first wave Northwest Ordinance of 1787 Post-Confederacy South constitutions Western states concerned about machine politics
Trend since the 1960s
State constitutions
Shared components
No sovereignty, but home rule Dillon’s Rule, 1868
“Municipal corporations owe their origins and derive their power and rights wholly from the state legislature. It breathes into them the breath without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so it may destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control.”
Local governments
Federalism is messy.
Medical use in 20 states plus DC Medical and recreational use in 4 states
Where is marijuana legal?
WA and CO voters “Don’t break out the
Cheetos or the Goldfish too quickly.”
Controlled Substances Act Illegal, no prescriptions
November 2012
State regulation from “seed to sale”
Children, inter-state sales, gangs
Banks, security providers, and landlords?
Justice Department’s response
Arizona’s 2010 laws Created state
requirements and penalties related to immigration law enforcement
Existing federal law
Immigration
Four provisions (1) created a state-law crime for being unlawfully present in the United
States (2) created a state-law crime for working or seeking work while not
authorized to do so (3) required state and local officers to verify the citizenship or alien status
of anyone who was lawfully arrested or detained (4) authorized warrantless arrests of aliens believed to be removable from
the United States. Does federal immigration law 1) preclude Arizona's enforcement
efforts and 2) preempt AZ law?
Arizona v. United States
Four provisions (1) created a state-law crime for being unlawfully present in the
United States (2) created a state-law crime for working or seeking work while
not authorized to do so (3) required state and local officers to verify the citizenship or alien status
of anyone who was lawfully arrested or detained (4) authorized warrantless arrests of aliens believed to be
removable from the United States. Does federal immigration law 1) preclude Arizona's enforcement
efforts and 2) preempt AZ law? Yes and no.
Arizona v. United States
Thirteen states and DC permit same sex marriage Federal benefits related to marriage Defense of Marriage Act, 1996
Same sex marriage
Windsor and Spyer married in Canada, 2007
$383,000 tax, no marital exemption
United States v. Windsor, 2013
Is DOMA, which defines the term marriage as a “legal union between a man and a woman”, unconstitutional?
Is DOMA, which defines the term marriage as a “legal union between a man and a woman”, unconstitutional?
Partly. Given state marriage, it imposes a “disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma” on same-sex couples in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.