Capitol Ideas | 2013 | Issue 6 | Federalism

FEDERALISM | they said it

“States and the federal government are inseparable partners in creating a strong economic future for our country.” —Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, in an essay for Roll Call in February 2013. Markell is past chair and Fallin is the current chair of the National Governors Association.

“In the search for enlightened public policy, individual States and communities are free to experiment with a variety of approaches to public issues.” —President Ronald Reagan,

“(T)he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones.” —Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Judge William Johnson in 1823, as quoted in

in executive order 12512 in October 1987.

“At a time when Washington can’t or won’t act, states are stepping up and launching ambitious, sophisticated new experiments.”

We Still Hold These Truths.

“(States) are the ordinary governments of the country; the federal government is its instrument only for particular purposes.” —President Woodrow Wilson, in Constitutional Government in the United States.

—Mark Muro, policy director for the Brookings metropolitan policy program, in a January 2013, Stateline.org article about New York’s establishment of NY Green Bank to spur

—Justice Anthony Kennedy, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in Bond v. United States, in June 2011. The ruling points out that federalism has more than one dynamic and the federal balance should ensure states function as political entities in their own right.

» NOV / DEC 2013

“The allocation of powers in our federal system preserves the integrity, dignity, and residual sovereignty of the States.”

CAPITOL IDEAS

renewable energy investments.

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