SaturdayDec 20, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Federal commandeering of state governments is such a novel phenomenon that this Courts first experience with it did not occur until the 1970s....later opinions of ours have made clear that the Federal Government may not compel the States to implement, by legislation or executive action, federal regulatory programs....Even assuming, moreover, that the Brady Act leaves no 'policymaking' discretion with the States, we fail to see how that improves rather than worsens the intrusion upon state sovereignty. Preservation of the States as independent and autonomous political entities is arguably less undermined by requiring them to make policy in certain fields than (as Judge Sneed aptly described it over two decades ago) by 'reducing them to puppets of a ventriloquist Congress.'
Even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.
By forcing state governments to absorb the financial burden of implementing a federal regulatory program, Members of Congress can take credit for 'solving' problems without having to ask their constituents to pay for the solutions with higher federal taxes. And even when the States are not forced to absorb the costs of implementing a federal program, they are still put in the position of taking the blame for its burdensomeness and for its defects....Under the present law, for example, it will be the [law enforcement official] and not some federal official who stands between the gun purchaser and immediate possession of his gun. And it will likely be the [law enforcement official], not some federal official, who will be blamed for any error.
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