Chapter 4. Federalism and the U.S. Constitution

Exercises

House uncommon?

Part of the United States' separation of powers system means that our president decides when to interact with Congress. Only once a year is the president required to address Congress in his State of the Union speech. The British prime minister, on the other hand, is also a member of the House of Commons, so there is no true separation of executive and legislative powers. This provides the prime minister with many powers the president of the United States does not have, but it also means the prime minister must face his colleagues in the House of Commons much more frequently. Indeed, the prime minister must face questions from his or her fellow members of Parliament typically once a week.

Go to C-SPAN's Prime Minister's Questions archive web site (requires Real Player), and click on "British House of Commons Prime Minister's Questions."

Are the members polite in their questions to the prime minister? Do they seem to have a particular motivation behind their questions? Do you think the U.S. Congress would treat the president in the same way if the president answered questions from Congress once a week?
Do you think the president will ever hold a "President's Questions" with the U.S. Congress?
Do you think it would give Congress too much of a check on the executive branch if such a practice were initiated in the United States? Would it improve our government?

Gateway to grants

Federalism has changed over time. One of the key elements of current federalism relates to grants-in-aid, or how federal money is granted to states for particular policy purposes. As the textbook explains, this can be substantial. The U.S. Census Federal Assistance Award Data System provides an overview of the different grants provided by the federal government to each state. The grants are broken down in the following ways: (1) Formula grants comprise the categorical grants and block grants referred to in the text, and (2) project grants are grants awarded competitively for a particular policy purpose (these were not addressed in the text).

Scroll down to the "available data" section, click on the most recent of the "years available." From there, you have two choices. Click the U.S. Summary Table link.
- If the majority of grants are not block grants, what types of grants are they?
- What does this mean for the power of the federal government versus state and local governments?

Back on the Federal Assistance Award Data System home page, click on the State Summary Table" drop-down box and highlight your state.

Compared to the entire federal outlay of grants, how well did your state do? Is that positive or negative given your state's relative population size?
Compared to the ratio of block grants to all formula grants (largely made up of categorical grants), does your state have significant leeway on how it spends grant? Or is its relative block grant-to-formula grant ratio similar? What does it mean for your state's ability to tailor specific policies?

Amending the Constitution

As Chapter 2 illustrates, it is difficult to amend the Constitution of the United States. There have been twenty-seven amendments, but the first ten were passed as the Constitution was ratified and are known as the Bill of Rights. Three other amendments address resolutions to end divisions after the Civil War (13th, 14th, 15th Amendments), and two cancel each other out (the 18th Amendment's prohibition against alcohol and the 21st Amendment's repeal of this prohibition). This demonstrates the difficulty with successfully amending the Constitution.

Go to the U.S. House of Representative's United States Constitution web page to view a copy of the Constitution (or use the copy in the appendix of your book). Scroll down to Article 5 where it describes how to amend the Constitution. Also look at the different amendments. Some are rather brief while others are longer. Is there an amendment that you would like to see passed? Lately a number of issues have led some people to promote amending the Constitution.
A popular amendment that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives numerous times over the years is an amendment to ban the burning of the American flag. The Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag is a protected form of free speech. Read a history of the court's ruling on the PBS web site dedicated to Thomas Jefferson's ideals. It discusses the Supreme Court case U.S. vs. Eichman and provides the Court's logic on why flag burning should be allowed.

Would you support an amendment that outlawed flag burning? How would it read?
After studying the regional ideologies as outlined in the "Who Are We?" feature in this chapter, what are its chances of passing?

The debate over same-sex marriage is another popular amendment that was included on several 2008 ballots (e.g. California, Arizona, Florida). Supporters of such an amendment (see NoGayMarriage.com) argue that it would supercede any state being able to allow gay marriage, and those against such an amendment (see DontAmend.com) view it as discriminatory. California, Arizona, Florida, and Connecticut

Would you support such an amendment? How would it be written?
Look at the regional ideologies figure in this chapter's "Who Are We?" feature. What are this amendment's chances of passing?

Finally, as the chapter states, another amendment being put forward supports changing the Constitution to make foreign-born Americans eligible to become president. Much of the support for this amendment comes from supporters of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (see AmendforArnold.com), who along with Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm are not allowed to run for president.

How would such an amendment be structured?
Could it be passed?