Chapter 3: Federalism

1. AFDC: or Aid to Families with Dependent Children is the name of a federal assistance program in effect from 1935 through to the Clinton administration in 1997. Essentially, it is the controversial welfare topic.
2. Block Grants: Grants of money from the federal government to states for programs in general areas rather than for specific kinds of programs.
3. Categoral grants: Federal grants for specific purposes defined by federal law: to build an airport, etc.
4. Conditions of aid: Federal rules attached to the grants that states receive. States must abide by these rules in order to receive the grants.
5. Confederation or confederal system: A political system in which states or regional governments retain ultimate authority except for those powers that they expressly delegate to a central government.
6. Devolution: The current effort to scale back the size and activities of the national government and to shirt responsibility for a wide range of domestic programs from Washington to the states.
7. Dual Federalism: A constitutional theory that the national government and the state governments each have defined areas of authority, especially over commerce.
8. Federal System: A system in which sovereignty is shared so that on some matters the national government and on others the states, regional, or provincial governments are supreme.
9. Federal republic: a federation of states with a republican form of government.
10. Grants-in-aid: Federal funds provided to states and localities. Grants-in-aid are typically provided for airports, highways, education, and major welfare services.
11. Initiative: A procedure allowing voters to submit a proposed law to a popular vote by obtaining a required number or signatures.
12. Intergovernmental lobby: State and local officials began to form a new lobby: consisting of mayors, governors, superintendents, state directors, police chiefs etc. etc.
13. Interstate Commerce:


14. Intrastate Commerce:


15. Land grant colleges: colleges and institutions of higher education in the United States which have been designated by Congress to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.
16. McCulloch v. Maryland: The product of a disagreement between Alexander Hamilton and his proposed Bank of the United States and Jefferson & Co; this decision held that Constitution does not specifically give Congress the power to establish a bank, it does delegate the ability to control national economic policy, which a bank is a proper and suitable instrument to assist the operations of the government in the collection and disbursement of the revenue.
17. Mandates: Rules imposed by the federal government on the states as conditions for obtaining federal grants or requirements that the states pay the costs of certain nationally defined programs.
18. Medicaid: US health insurance program for individuals and families with low incomes and resources. It is jointly funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the states.
19. Model Cities:


20. National Interest: a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The notion is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist school.
21. Necessary and proper clause: The final paragraph of Article I, section 8, of the Constitution, which authorizes the Congress to pass all laws “necessary and proper” to carry out the enumerated powers. A.K.A. Elastic clause.
22. Nullification Police Powers:


23. Recall: A procedure, in effect in over twenty states, whereby the voters can vote to remove and elected official from office.
24. Referendum: The practice of submitting a law to a popular vote at election time. The lay may be proposed by a voter’s initiative or by the legislature.
25. Revenue Sharing: A law providing for the distribution of a fixed amount or share of federal tax revenues to the staes for spending on almost any government purpose. Distribution was intended to bring more money to the poor.
26. Second Order Devolution: The flow of power and responsibility from states to local governments..
27. Sovereignty: Supreme or ultimate political authority; a sovereign government is one that is legally and politically independent of any other government.
28. State’s Rights:


29. 10th Amendment: The Amendment, which makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited only to the powers it is granted in the Constitution.
30. Ronald Regan: Fortieth president of the United States. 1981-1989. Republican party.
31. Marble Cake:

32. Picket Fence:

33. Commerce Clause: Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, empowers the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

34. Cooperative Federalism: a version of federalism where national, state and local governments work together to solve ordinary and everyday problems; as opposed to making policy separate but more equal.

35. Concurrent Powers: powers held by both the states and the federal government and may be exercised simultaneously within the same territory and in relation to the same body of citizens.

36. Supremacy Clause: establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. treaties as "the supreme law of the land."

37. Full faith credit: provided for comity between states and enforcement across state lines of non-federal laws, civil claims and court rulings. This all refers to Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution.

38. Printz v. U.S.: a United States Supreme Court ruling that established the unconstitutionality of certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

39. U.S. v Lopez: Alfonso Lopez, Jr carried a handgun and cartridges into his high school, Edison High, San Antonio, Texas. He was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act (of 1990), 18 U.S.C. § 922(q). The Supreme Court held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, it was not unlimited, and did not apply to something as far from commerce as carrying handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale.

40. Gibbons v. Ogden: a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the power to regulate interstate navigation was reserved to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. 1824.


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