Supreme Court shapes new federalism

The U.S. Supreme Court has, with little notice, struck down several acts of Congress in the last few years, concluding that legislators exceeded their constitutionally prescribed boundaries. In cases on issues ranging from age discrimination to violence against women, the court has used a new standard of federalism to determine whether the federal government has surpassed its authority, imposing on states and local government unconstitutional requirements.\nAmerican federalism has undergone several notable changes: from pre-Depression state-dominance to decidedly national government control roughly between 1933 and the late 1970s, and today, to a movement toward a balanced federalism between states and Washington.\nThe judicial brawn assumed by the Court in its determination to apply this pre-Depression federalism is new to recent memory. In prior civil rights cases, including Brown v. Board of Education, it was the Court that asserted a national interest in promoting equality. It has made a complete shift and is prepared, it seems, to impose a much narrower notion of what is rightly in Congress's dominion.\nThese developments in how the Supreme Court views federalism, intangible as their effects might seem, are arguably more important than the tangible effects of devolution from actions taken by Congress and the White House. Whether a government bureaucrat works in Washington or Indianapolis or is called an employee or contractor is insignificant. The work must still get done, regardless of how often politicians fight over who reduced the size of government. \nThe justices, in their own relatively secretive way, are taking power from Congress and the president.\nIn January, the court determined an employee of this University cannot sue for redress under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. In other words, a professor at IU, a public school, has fewer rights now than his colleague at the University of Notre Dame, a private institution. The justices, 5-4, concluded the federal government had not sufficiently shown need for national legislation prohibiting age discrimination by states. \nThe case, Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, No. 98-791, pitted states' rights claims that Congress lacks authority to prohibit age discrimination by states against Congress's right to determine how far it can go under the 14th Amendment to provide for equal protection under law. \nBefore Kimel, individuals lost their right to sue the state under the Fair Labor Standards Act in June 1999 in Alden v. Maine, No. 99-436, which was decided 5-4. And a separate ruling saw the Violence Against Women Act invalidated.\nWhile the country was busy having its own debate on Election Day about some of the same issues of government power and individual rights, the Court sat in session for the argument in a case with profound implications on public health standards. At issue in Solid Waste Agency v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was whether the Corps could take away a local government's right to use land the Corps felt deserved protection under a national environmental law.\nOur nation will continue in its debate of what course to take on federalism, both in the judicial and elected branches, during the next few years. The conservative court will inevitably be affected by the influence of new justices appointed by either Vice President Al Gore or Texas Gov. George W. Bush.