Search results
Dual federalism (also known as layer-cake federalism) is a system of governance where the federal government and state governments each have clearly defined spheres of power. Under dual federalist political systems, the federal government cannot interfere with matters delegated to state authority, and states cannot interfere with matters of ...
Dual federalism is both a theory of how a federal system should allocate governmental powers, responsibilities, and resources and an era of American political history.
The Supreme Court continued to apply the basic principle of federal supremacy throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But the Supremacy Clause’s role during that era was limited by other aspects of the Court’s federalism jurisprudence.
In the hands of a conservative, property-minded judiciary in the late nineteenth century, dual federalism became a potent instrument for invalidation of federal regulatory measures.
See Edward S. Corwin, The Passing of Dual Federalism, 36 Va. L. Rev. 1, 4 (1950) (defining Dual Federalism as involving the following postulates: 1. The national government is one of enumerated po we rs only; 2. Also the purposes which it may constitutionally promote are few; 3.
Although the Court may revisit constraining federal power on federalism grounds, Congress lacks authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate states when federal statutory provisions would “commandeer” a state’s legislative or executive authority to implement a federal regulatory program. 4. Footnotes. 1.
Under dual federalism, the states and national government exercise exclusive authority in distinctly delineated spheres of jurisdiction. Like the layers of a cake, the levels of government do not blend with one another but rather are clearly defined.
