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The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791.[1] The Tenth Amendment states the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved, respectively, to the states or the people.
| “ | 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. | ” |
The Tenth Amendment is similar to an earlier provision of the Articles of Confederation: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."[2] After the Constitution was ratified, some wanted to add a similar amendment limiting the federal government to powers "expressly" delegated, which would have denied implied powers.[3] However, the word "expressly" ultimately did not appear in the Tenth Amendment as ratified, and therefore the Tenth Amendment did not reject the powers implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause.
When he introduced the Tenth Amendment in Congress, James Madison explained that many states were anxious to ratify this amendment, despite critics who deemed the amendment superfluous or unnecessary:
I find, from looking into the amendments proposed by the State conventions, that several are particularly anxious that it should be declared in the Constitution, that the powers not therein delegated should be reserved to the several States. Perhaps words which may define this more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered as superfluous. I admit they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated. I am sure I understand it so, and do therefore propose it.[4]
The states decided to ratify the Tenth Amendment, and thus declined to signal that there are unenumerated powers in addition to unenumerated rights.[5][6] The amendment rendered unambiguous what had previously been at most a mere suggestion or implication.
The phrase "..., or to the people." was appended in handwriting as the Bill of Rights circulated between the two Houses of Congress.[7]
The Tenth Amendment, which makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited only to the powers granted in the Constitution, is often considered to be a truism. In United States v. Sprague (1931) the Supreme Court asserted that the amendment "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified."
States and local governments have occasionally attempted to assert exemption from various federal regulations, especially in the areas of labor and environmental controls, using the Tenth Amendment as a basis for their claim. An often-repeated quote, from United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941), reads as follows:
The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.....
The Supreme Court rarely declares laws unconstitutional for violating the Tenth Amendment. In the modern era, the Court has only done so where the federal government compels the states to enforce federal statutes. In 1992, in New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), for only the second time in 55 years, the Supreme Court invalidated a portion of a federal law for violating the Tenth Amendment. The case challenged a portion of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985. The act provided three incentives for states to comply with statutory obligations to provide for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. The first two incentives were monetary. The third, which was challenged in the case, obliged states to take title to any waste within their borders that was not disposed of prior to January 1, 1996, and made each state liable for all damages directly related to the waste. The Court, in a 6–3 decision, ruled that the imposition of that obligation on the states violated the Tenth Amendment. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the federal government can encourage the states to adopt certain regulations through the spending power (e.g. by attaching conditions to the receipt of federal funds, see South Dakota v. Dole), or through the commerce power (by directly pre-empting state law). However, Congress cannot directly compel states to enforce federal regulations.
In 1997, the Court again ruled that the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment (Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)). The act required state and local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks on persons attempting to purchase handguns. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, applied New York v. United States to show that the law violated the Tenth Amendment. Since the act "forced participation of the State's executive in the actual administration of a federal program", it was unconstitutional.
In modern times, the Commerce Clause has become one of the most frequently-used sources of Congress' power, and thus its interpretation is very important in determining the allowable scope of federal government.
In the 20th century, complex economic challenges arising from the Great Depression triggered a reevaluation in both Congress and the Supreme Court of the use of Commerce Clause powers to maintain a strong national economy.
In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), in the context of World War II, the Court ruled that federal regulations of wheat production could constitutionally be applied to wheat grown for "home consumption" on a farm – that is, wheat grown to be fed to farm animals or otherwise consumed on the farm. The rationale was that a farmer's growing "his own wheat" can have a substantial cumulative effect on interstate commerce, because if all farmers were to exceed their production quotas, a significant amount of wheat would either not be sold on the market or would be bought from other producers. Hence, in the aggregate, if farmers were allowed to consume their own wheat, it would affect the interstate market in wheat.
In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985), the Court changed the analytic framework to be applied in Tenth Amendment cases. Prior to the Garcia decision, the determination of whether there was state immunity from federal regulation turned on whether the state activity was "traditional" for or "integral" to the state government. The Court noted that this analysis was "unsound in principle and unworkable in practice", and rejected it without providing a replacement. The Court's holding declined to set any formula to provide guidance in future cases. Instead, it simply held "...we need go no further than to state that we perceive nothing in the overtime and minimum-wage requirements of the FLSA ... that is destructive of state sovereignty or violative of any constitutional provision." It left to future courts how best to determine when a particular federal regulation may be "destructive of state sovereignty or violative of any constitutional provision."
In United States v. Lopez 514 U.S. 549 (1995), a federal law mandating a "gun-free zone" on and around public school campuses was struck down because, the Supreme Court ruled, there was no clause in the Constitution authorizing it. This was the first modern Supreme Court opinion to limit the government's power under the Commerce Clause. The opinion did not mention the Tenth Amendment, and the Court's 1985 Garcia opinion remains the controlling authority on that subject.
Most recently, the Commerce Clause was cited in the 2005 decision Gonzales v. Raich. In this case, a California woman sued the Drug Enforcement Administration after her medical marijuana crop was seized and destroyed by federal agents. Medical marijuana was explicitly made legal under California state law by Proposition 215; however, marijuana is prohibited at the federal level by the Controlled Substances Act. Even though the woman grew the marijuana strictly for her own consumption and never sold any, the Supreme Court stated that growing one's own marijuana affects the interstate market of marijuana. The theory was that the marijuana could enter the stream of interstate commerce, even if it clearly wasn't grown for that purpose and that was unlikely ever to happen (the same reasoning as in the Wickard v. Filburn decision). It therefore ruled that this practice may be regulated by the federal government under the authority of the Commerce Clause.
The federal system limits the ability of the federal government to use state governments as an instrument of the national government, as held in Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997). However, where Congress or the Executive has the power to implement programs, or otherwise regulate, there are, arguably, certain incentives in the national government encouraging States to become the instruments of such national policy, rather than to implement the program directly. One incentive is that state implementation of national programs places implementation in the hands of local officials who are closer to local circumstances. Another incentive is that implementation of federal programs at the state level would in principle limit the growth of the national bureaucracy.
For this reason, Congress often seeks to exercise its powers by offering or encouraging States to implement national programs consistent with national minimum standards; a system known as cooperative federalism. One example of the exercise of this device was to condition allocation of federal funding where certain state laws do not conform to federal guidelines. For example, federal educational funds may not be accepted without implementation of special education programs in compliance with IDEA. Similarly, the nationwide state 55 mph (90 km/h) speed limit, .08 legal blood alcohol limit, and the nationwide state 21-year drinking age were imposed through this method; the states would lose highway funding if they refused to pass such laws. See e.g. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987).
Several states have introduced various resolutions and legislation in protest to federal actions.[8] Despite this, the Supreme Court has explicitly rejected the idea that the states can nullify federal law. In Cooper v. Aaron (1958), the Supreme Court of the United States held that federal law prevails over state law due to the operation of the Supremacy Clause, and that federal law "can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes . . . ." Thus, state laws purporting to nullify federal statutes or to exempt states and their citizens from federal statutes have only symbolic impact.
These resolutions attempt to reassert state sovereignty over any area not listed among the "enumerated powers" (i.e., any law based on an "expansive reading" of the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Supremacy Clause would, according to this resolution, be invalid).
A "State Sovereignty Bill" is one step beyond a State Sovereignty Resolution. The bill would mandate action against what the state legislature perceives as unconstitutional federal legislation.
This proposed legislation would "...declare that any firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states". The legislation would require that the firearm be prominently marked as being "Made in {name of state}" and further prohibit federal regulation solely on the basis that "basic materials" and "generic and insignificant parts" of the firearm may have their origins from outside the state.
As of November 2010[update], 15 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia have passed legislation which permit the use of medical marijuana.[16] California Proposition 19 would have gone one step further, and legalized marijuana use by persons over age 21 for any purpose whatsoever;[17] however, the state constitutional amendment did not pass.
The Obama administration announced in October 2009 that it advised federal prosecutors not to target medicinal marijuana users, or their suppliers, in states that have passed such laws.[18][19]
Despite this promise, the DEA has continued to raid medical facilities in several states,[20][21][22] and the DOJ has gone so far as to prevent such cases from being well publicized.[23]
As of March 2010[update], 25 states (beginning with Maine in 2007) have passed legislation and/or resolutions which opposed the REAL ID Act. Though the legislation is still on the books, its implementation has been delayed on several occasions and is currently not being enforced.[24]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in 30 states had introduced legislation which would declare certain provisions of any proposed national health care bill to be null and void within the state; the legislation passed in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, and Virginia.[25] Such provisions include mandatory participation in such a system as well as preserving the right of a patient to pay a health care professional for treatment (and for the professional to accept it) outside of a single-payer system. Arizona's legislation passed as a proposed constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2010.[26] On February 1, 2010, the Virginia Senate took a stand against a key provision of a proposed federal health care overhaul, passing legislation declaring that Virginia residents cannot be forced to buy health insurance. On March 17, 2010, Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter signed a bill requiring the Attorney General to sue the federal government if Idaho residents are required to buy health insurance.[27]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in seven states had introduced legislation which would permit the governor of the state to recall any National Guard troops from overseas deployments (such as in Iraq and Afghanistan); the bills failed in Maryland and New Mexico.[28]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in seven states have introduced legislation which would seek to nullify federal legal tender laws in the state by authorizing payment in gold and silver or a paper note backed 100% by gold or silver; the legislation failed in Colorado and Montana.[29]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in four states have introduced legislation which would nullify any proposed federal emissions regulation under the "cap-and-trade" model; none have advanced beyond the introductory stage.[30]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in three states have introduced legislation which would require businesses (and in some cases, individuals) to remit their federal tax payments to the state treasurer (or equivalent body) for deposit into an escrow fund. If the state legislature determined that a portion of the federal budget was not constitutional, or if the federal government imposed penalties or sanctions upon the state for creating the fund, then the money would be withheld. None have advanced beyond the introductory stage.[31]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in three states had introduced legislation which would make it a crime for any federal agent to make an arrest, search or seizure within the state without getting the advance, written permission of the sheriff of the county in which the event would take place. The bills would provide for the following exceptions:
None have advanced beyond the introductory stage.[33]
As of February 2010[update], legislators in Utah have introduced legislation to allow the use of eminent domain on federal land. Rep. Christopher Herrod has introduced the bill in a state where the federal government controls over 60% of the land. The effort has the full support of Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who would have to defend the law. The proposal includes setting aside $3 million for legal defense.[34][35]
As of March 2010[update], legislators in four states had introduced legislation which would nullify federal regulation of commerce and activities which are solely within the boundaries of a state and which do not cross state lines. The Virginia legislation has passed one house.[36]
Another form of protest against enforcement of immigration laws, several United States cities have declared themselves sanctuary cities, whereby they have ordered the local police department to specifically not work with United States Customs and Border Protection officials to arrest persons illegally residing within the boundaries of the city, and to not inquire as to a person's immigration status, even if the person was arrested.[37]
In protest of the Environmental Protection Agency allegedly overstepping its authority by interfering with intrastate commerce, the West Virginia Intrastate Coal and Use Act (H.B. 2554)[38] was being introduced into the West Virginia House of Delegates by Delegate Gary Howell. The bill states that coal sold and used within the borders of West Virginia is not subject to EPA authority because no interstate commerce exists and the state retains the rights to control its own intrastate commerce under the 10th Amendment.[39][40][41] The American Legislative Exchange Council recommends the Intrastate Coal and Use Act for model legislation in other states. [42]