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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
  1. Explain how the Gun Free School Zone Act raises questions about federalism.
  2. Understand how debates about federalism can be traced to debates between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.
  3. Understand how the Constitution affects federalism, including the importance of the supremacy clause and the necessary and proper clause.
  4. Explain the struggle between dual sovereignty and nullification and how McCulloch v. Maryland addressed this issue.
  5. Understand how court decisions during the New Deal influenced dual sovereignty and lead to cooperative federalism.
  6. Understand the importance of the spending clause and how Congress uses pork barrel projects, categorical grants, and block grants to influence policies that would otherwise be the purview of the state governments.
  7. Explain how unfunded mandates work, why Congress likes them, and why the states do not like them. Also, provide some example of unfunded mandates proposed by Democrats and some proposed by Republicans.
  8. Describe the types of local governments, their popularity, and the services they provide (and do not provide).
  9. Understand how states act as laboratories of democracy and contemporary issues facing state governments.





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