Why devolution? Because the thing I’m describing is just what the word means: “the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration.”
It’s always been the case that the US is more devolved than typical countries, but the constitution is quite clear that power is devolved to the states from the federal government, and not that the federal government is granted power at the behest of the states (as was the structure of, say, the articles of confederation).
I agree with you that I think devolution is generally a good thing. Policies don’t work well when they try to address the needs of too many people with too differing of needs and desires. Most of our problems today come, in my estimation, from overreach by the federal government and fights over what that overreach should do. This does mean accepting some undesirable outcomes, like allowing states to enact policies I disagree with, but I see this as the price of peace. Thankfully the US Constitution is designed to enable such a system, and I expect we’ll naturally fall back on it if a strong national government becomes more than people will tolerate.
the constitution is quite clear that power is devolved to the states from the federal government, and not that the federal government is granted power at the behest of the states
The 10th amendment to the US constitution says:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
which sounds like the opposite of what you say. Of course, practice may be different.
My understanding is that since the Civil War the interpretation of the 10th Amendment is that states retain powers not because they are independent states participating with the federal government, but are explicitly subject to federal authority and maintain their powers only insofar as the constitution protects them and the federal government doesn’t move to take them by rule of law. Prior to the end of the Civil War it seems to have generally been held that states were independently associated with the United States and could leave, and we fought a war to assert that they could not. This makes it clear that any powers they have are because the federal government lets them have them rather than the other way around.
Well, given that the text of the US constitution seems to clearly state that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government belong to the states (or the people), I don’t see how “power is devolved to the states from the federal government”. It seems that the states don’t need to wait for the federal government to “devolve” power to them in order to do something. As indeed we saw recently with respect to covid policy.
You could argue that the federal government “lets” the states do this, in the sense that the federal government has more guns than the states, and hence could stop them it it wanted to. But this would be naive. These guns are operated by people, whose loyalty to the federal government if there were a conflict would not be automatic.
Your textual interpretation of the constitution may be the right one, but it is not the one that governs as law in the US. Supreme Court has been very clear for the past 100+ years that the 10th amendment means literally nothing.
Why devolution? Because the thing I’m describing is just what the word means: “the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration.”
It’s always been the case that the US is more devolved than typical countries, but the constitution is quite clear that power is devolved to the states from the federal government, and not that the federal government is granted power at the behest of the states (as was the structure of, say, the articles of confederation).
I agree with you that I think devolution is generally a good thing. Policies don’t work well when they try to address the needs of too many people with too differing of needs and desires. Most of our problems today come, in my estimation, from overreach by the federal government and fights over what that overreach should do. This does mean accepting some undesirable outcomes, like allowing states to enact policies I disagree with, but I see this as the price of peace. Thankfully the US Constitution is designed to enable such a system, and I expect we’ll naturally fall back on it if a strong national government becomes more than people will tolerate.
the constitution is quite clear that power is devolved to the states from the federal government, and not that the federal government is granted power at the behest of the states
The 10th amendment to the US constitution says:
which sounds like the opposite of what you say. Of course, practice may be different.
My understanding is that since the Civil War the interpretation of the 10th Amendment is that states retain powers not because they are independent states participating with the federal government, but are explicitly subject to federal authority and maintain their powers only insofar as the constitution protects them and the federal government doesn’t move to take them by rule of law. Prior to the end of the Civil War it seems to have generally been held that states were independently associated with the United States and could leave, and we fought a war to assert that they could not. This makes it clear that any powers they have are because the federal government lets them have them rather than the other way around.
Well, given that the text of the US constitution seems to clearly state that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government belong to the states (or the people), I don’t see how “power is devolved to the states from the federal government”. It seems that the states don’t need to wait for the federal government to “devolve” power to them in order to do something. As indeed we saw recently with respect to covid policy.
You could argue that the federal government “lets” the states do this, in the sense that the federal government has more guns than the states, and hence could stop them it it wanted to. But this would be naive. These guns are operated by people, whose loyalty to the federal government if there were a conflict would not be automatic.
Your textual interpretation of the constitution may be the right one, but it is not the one that governs as law in the US. Supreme Court has been very clear for the past 100+ years that the 10th amendment means literally nothing.