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.
After reaching an ebb in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,1 the Tenth Amendment reemerged as a source of constitutional limits on congressional power in the 1990s. These modern cases rely less on the Amendment’s text than on the constitutional system of federalism it embodies and confirms.2
The following essays review three lines of case law. The first concerns the “anti-commandeering” principle of New York v. United States.3 Under that doctrine, the federal government may not directly compel states “to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.” 4 Second, the Court has relied on the “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” in recent voting rights cases.5 Although the precise textual basis for the doctrine is unclear, the equal sovereignty doctrine is at least arguably founded on Tenth Amendment principles.6 Finally, although the Court’s modern Commerce Clause doctrine is primarily discussed elsewhere in Constitution Annotated,7 this section briefly discusses those cases’ invocations of the Tenth Amendment.
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Footnotes
- 1
- 469 U.S. 528 (1985).
- 2
- See New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 157–58 (1992) (finding protection for state sovereignty against commandeering was “not derived from the text of the Tenth Amendment itself” but in how it “confirms that the power of the Federal Government is subject to limits” ); accord Murphy v. NCAA, No. 16-476, slip op. at 15–16 (U.S. May 14, 2018). At times, the Court has described its anti-commandeering doctrine as an interpretation of the word “proper” under the Necessary and Proper Clause. See Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 923–24 (1997); Murphy, slip op. at 2 (Thomas, J., concurring); see generally ArtI.S8.C18.6 Meaning of Proper.
- 3
- 505 U.S. 144 (1992).
- 4
- Id. at 170 (quoting Hodel v. Va. Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass’n, 452 U.S. 264, 288 (1981)).
- 5
- Shelby Cnty. v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 544 (2013).
- 6
- See Leah M. Litman, Inventing Equal Sovereignty, 114 Mich. L. Rev. 1207, 1232 (2016).
- 7
- See ArtI.S8.C3.6.1 United States v. Lopez and Interstate Commerce Clause.