72 Chapter 3Chapter 3 || Federa lismFedera lismcompromise the local police force’s relationship with immigrants, on whom the force
relies to report crimes in their communities.^2
This conflict over sanctuary cities is the result of one of the fundamental features of
America’s government: federalism. In areas such as education and law enforcement, the
federal government has only limited power to affect policy choices made at the state
and local level. Because of federalism, your experiences with government, including
the services you receive, the laws you are supposed to obey, and the regulations that
constrain your actions, are different depending on where you live.
As we discussed in Chapter 2, one of the reasons we have a federal system is the
desire to limit the power of the national government. Federalism also enables state
and local governments to take account of citizens’ demands or local conditions—
information that might not be available to decision makers in Washington. By giving
power to state and local governments, federalism can increase citizen satisfaction and
governmental efficiency.
However, as the fight over sanctuary cities suggests, federalism is more than a way
to increase responsiveness and efficiency. In many policy areas, federalism sets up
conflicts between different levels of government over who gets to make policy choices.
In the case of sanctuary cities, while city-level immigration enforcement policies may
be designed to make sure that their police forces function as efficiently as possible,
the cities’ approaches conflict with the federal government’s interest in deporting
undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. The conflict triggered by
the sanctuary cities is a great example of the tensions created by a federal system.
When local and federal officials disagree about sanctuary city policies, who wins? More
generally, what are the responsibilities of the states and what is the domain of the
national government? What happens when levels of government disagree? How have
the answers to these questions changed over the course of American history—and how
does federalism work today?What Is Federalism and Why Does It Matter?
Federalism is a form of government that divides sovereign power across at least two
political units. Dividing sovereign power simply means that each unit of government
(in the United States, national, state, and local governments) has some degree of
authority and autonomy. As discussed in Chapter 2, this division of power across
levels of government is central to the system of separated powers in the United States.
Dividing power across levels of government seems a simple concept, but as we will
see later in this chapter, the political battles over how that power is divided have
been intense.
In practical terms, federalism is about intergovernmental relations: How do the
different levels of government interact and how is power divided? But even that may
seem a little abstract. Why does federalism matter? On a broad range of issues, the
level of government that dictates policy can make a real difference, simply because
preferences vary across these levels. Sometimes these disagreements reflect different
beliefs about what citizens want from government. But more commonly, conflicts
result from differences of opinion about what government should be doing. In the case
of immigration policy, for example, the national government, represented by President
Trump and the Justice Department, supports aggressive policies to find and deportfederalism
The division of power across the local,
state, and national governments.sovereign power
The supreme power of an
independent state to regulate its
internal affairs without foreign
interference.DEFINE FEDERALISM
AND EXPLAIN ITS
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