The tensions of American federalism

American federalism doesn’t seem like it should be that complicated. After all, it’s the kind of thing that we are taught in grade school and then have explained to us – again and again – up through our introductory American politics class in college. So, defining it one more time should be easy: federalism is the division of power among national and local political actors. Each level of government has some degree of autonomy and independence, such as a power to tax or to enforce certain kinds of rules. While each level has discrete powers, there is also a tendency for these levels to cooperate. This is a useful system because it divides power, preventing tyranny. More practically, it’s also a great way to govern a large, diverse country. Finally, federalism also brings government closer to us as citizens: it is easier to influence politics on the state or local level, and those political actions can still have sort of meaning since states possess meaningful political powers.

But, of course, federalism isn’t quite as simple as all that. The problem is that this simple “division of powers” among levels of government is not a straightforward problem of dividing tasks between this legislature, that legislature, and whatever other political body we want to talk about. Instead, as is often the case, interest and politics interfere and confuse this division of political power.