Haywood v. Drown
The Supreme Court ruling in Haywood v. Drown got lost in the news last week, but it was an important constitutional case involving the principle of federalism. The issue concerned the extent to which the central government can commandeer state judicial systems. Unfortunately, by a narrow 5-4 vote, the Court gave the central government a green light.
Justice Clarence Thomas filed another one of his sober, scholarly opinions in dissent and I think he makes the case rather well. Excerpt:
The Court holds that New York Correction Law Annotated §24, which divests New York’s state courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over suits seeking money damages from correction officers, violates the Supremacy Clause ofthe Constitution, Art. VI, cl. 2, because it requires the dismissal of federal actions brought in state court under42 U. S. C. §1983. I disagree. Because neither the Constitution nor our precedent requires New York to open its courts to §1983 federal actions, I respectfully dissent.
Although the majority decides this case on the basis of the Supremacy Clause, see ante, at 5–13, the proper starting point is Article III of the Constitution. Article III, §1, provides that “[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” The history of the drafting and ratification of this Article establishes that it leaves untouched the States’ plenary authority to decide whether their local courts will have subject-matter jurisdiction over federal causes of action.
Until this setback, the Court’s conservatives were doing well in this corner of the law. In New York v. United States (1992), the Court ruled that state legislatures were not subject to federal direction. In Printz v. United States (1997), the Court ruled that state executive officers were not subject to federal direction. This case stood for the proposition that state courts are not subject to federal direction. Alas, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the liberals to subordinate the states to federal control.
Here’s a practical example to illustrate the problem. It’s bad enough when Congress wants to pass a law like the Americans with Disabilities Act (pdf)–a law that will create a flood of litigation. But what if Congress goes a step further and writes the law in such as way as to say ”take all those time-consuming lawsuits to the state courts. Federal judges and personnel can’t be bothered with that stuff!” So state courts get clogged or state lawmakers must raise taxes to alleviate the added burden, which blurs accountability. That’s what is likely to happen. Or, to be precise, continue to happen with increasing frequency. The feds have permission to foist costs on to the states.
But, to be clear, the main issue here is the proper division of federal and state authority. Even if Congress were to get around the problem of unfunded mandates by throwing money at the states, each state should retain control over its judiciary. As Justice Thomas notes, the issue of federal supremacy is too often distorted by liberals. Within its proper sphere, the feds are supreme. Liberals want supremacy and federal authority that is plenary. Wrong. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee should be asked about federalism and the doctrine of enumerated powers at the confirmation hearings.
Filed under: General; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties; Regulatory Studies
Republicans Rediscover Their Big-Government Principles
Sen. Chuck Grassley, who can always be counted on to stick the federal government’s nose where it doesn’t belong, is criticizing Attorney General Eric Holder’s teeny-tiny steps toward a less oppressive enforcement of drug prohibition. Holder said on Wednesday “that federal agents will target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state law. This is a departure from policy under the Bush administration, which targeted dispensaries under federal law even if they complied with the state’s law allowing sales of medical marijuana.”
Grassley says that marijuana is a “gateway” drug to the use of harder drugs and that Holder “is not doing health care reform any good.”
As Tim Lynch and I wrote in the Cato Handbook for Policymakers:
President Bush . . . has spoken of the importance of the constitutional principle of federalism. Shortly after his inauguration, Bush said, “I’m going to make respect for federalism a priority in this administration.” Unfortunately, the president’s actions have not matched his words. Federal police agents and prosecutors continue to raid medical marijuana clubs in California and Arizona.
And as Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in dissenting from the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the power of the federal government to regulate medical marijuana:
If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything — and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
That’s the principle that Chuck Grassley defends. Republicans claim to be the small-government party — and President Obama’s policies on taxes, spending, and regulation certainly justify a view that the GOP is, if not a small-government party, at least the smaller-government party — but they forget those principles when it comes to imposing their social values through federal force.
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