What is Federalism?

A tug of war, a balancing act, two dancers dragging each other across the floor. This is the perpetual ebb and flow of power between the states and the federal government. How can things be legal in a state but illegal nationally? Are states obstinate barricades to federal legislation? Or are they laboratories of democracy? Exclusive Coveron discount: : https://coveron.com/CIVICS or use the code CIVICS at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Nick Capodice?

  Hey, everybody. Nick here. It remains fall. I just spent three hours at my number one apple orchard in the world where I snuck some underripe apples of my favorite variety. They are, by the way, the golden russet and the stamen winesap. I really like the flowery mouthfeel. F L O U R Y, flowery. And so we continue our back to school series, the most essential things you gotta know about how our government works so you can understand the rest of stuff happening in Washington, DC. And if we're talking favorite apples and favorite orchards, this is one of my favorite episodes of Civics 101. Hannah made it. It is about a truly unique American feature. It is that we are a country, but

• 0:45Nick Capodice?

  we are also, sort of, 50 completely different countries. Today is a cake-free episode on the concept of federalism. Civics teachers are going to understand the cake reference. And you should too. So stick around. You're gonna love it.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  It is my opinion that the South will be law-abiding and will comply with the decision of the court and accept it.

• 1:15Hannah McCarthy?

  In 1954, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  People in the South are just as law-abiding as anybody else. And other decisions have come down, which they said they wouldn't like. And there's never been any trouble as a result of any of these decisions.

• 1:32Hannah McCarthy?

  Brown versus Board of Education. Segregation in schools is unconstitutional, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. Separate but equal is not equal at all.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Nine thousand Negroes met together with no problem at all and discussed segregation and the ending of segregation. That was a misstatement.

• 1:54Hannah McCarthy?

  Three years later, a group of nine black students formally enrolled in an all-white school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

• 2:01Nick Capodice?

  The Little Rock Nine?

• 2:02Hannah McCarthy?

  The Little Rock Nine.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Units of the National Guard have been and are now being mobilized.

• 2:11Hannah McCarthy?

  And Governor Orville Faubus responded with military force.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Advanced units are already on duty on the grounds of Central High School.

• 2:21Hannah McCarthy?

  A mob of screaming white protesters lined the path as the nine students approached Central High School. They never did make it inside. The Arkansas National Guard, under orders from the governor, barred their entry.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Then you see it as a state-federal conflict of our time. Well, I don't think there's any question about that.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  This was clearly unconstitutional, based on the Supreme Court's decision. But the states nevertheless argued that they did not need to be, in a sense, bound by the US Supreme Court's decision. They disagreed with it. They said, we don't, we don't need to follow it.

• 2:57Hannah McCarthy?

  This is Lisa Mannheim. She's an associate professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law. So back in Arkansas in 1957, the governor tries to forcibly prevent enforcement of federal law.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  In response, the president, who at the time was President Eisenhower, sent in federal troops to escort these students into the state-run school. So that would be an example of state government refusing to comply with federal law. And in response, the federal government, here both the court, which concluded that the Arkansas was incorrect to think it had the power to do this, as well as the executive branch, the president here, pushing back against the state and, in a sense, forcing the state to comply with federal law.

• 3:40Hannah McCarthy?

  Eisenhower deputizes the National Guard to take it out of the governor's hands. And for the rest of the year, there is a military presence at the school enforcing the federal integration law.

• 3:53Nick Capodice?

  So Arkansas is forced to comply with desegregation?

• 3:56Hannah McCarthy?

  Actually, the events at Central High School were just the beginning. Before desegregation was going to happen in Arkansas, there was going to be a dance.

• 4:05Nick Capodice?

  What kind of dance?

• 4:07Hannah McCarthy?

  A dance of state and federal government in a constant swirl of conflict, negotiation, and defiance. A dance otherwise known as federalism. And that is the subject of our show today. One big government and the 50 little governments that comprise it. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

• 4:27Nick Capodice?

  And I'm Nick Capodice.

• 4:28Hannah McCarthy?

  And this is the Civics 101 starter kit on the delicate balance that keeps or tries to keep American democracy in order.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  The United States is a federation. And what that means is that we don't only have a national government. We also have a number of governments that operate, in a sense, underneath the federal government or alongside the federal government. And in the United States, this refers to the 50 separate state governments that exist along with the federal government. And it's important to understand that these state governments are their own independent governments. They are not just subsections of the federal government.

• 5:09Hannah McCarthy?

  Back in Arkansas in the 50s, Eisenhower sends the troops in and says, waltz.

• 5:17Hannah McCarthy?

  But Governor Faubus is like, no way. You can't make me. Tango.

• 5:25Hannah McCarthy?

  Arkansas requests a delay on desegregation from the federal court system, and they get it.

• 5:33Hannah McCarthy?

  But then, the NAACP petitions the Supreme Court for an emergency overturn. Arkansas's case goes back to the federal courts.

• 5:44Hannah McCarthy?

  Governor Faubus won't budge. He calls an emergency session of the Arkansas General Assembly to consider 16 bills to forestall desegregation.

• 5:57Hannah McCarthy?

  The Supreme Court meets and orders immediate integration of Central High.

• 6:05Hannah McCarthy?

  Arkansas passes the segregation bills and closes the Little Rock High School system.

• 6:13Hannah McCarthy?

  For the next year, there's no integration in Little Rock High Schools because there are no Little Rock High Schools.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 7:02Speaker 05

  Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. A front payment of $45 for three-month plan, $15 per month equivalent required.

• 7:28Speaker 06

  New customer offer first three months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its Agentic Trust platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526% return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest-growing companies use Vanta at vanta.com.

• 8:04Nick Capodice?

  Hannah, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is totally illegal, isn't it?

• 8:09Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, yeah. It's totally illegal.

• 8:11Nick Capodice?

  But it happened.

• 8:12Hannah McCarthy?

  But it happened.

• 8:13Nick Capodice?

  How is it possible that it happened?

• 8:14Speaker 03

  If you think about a government as having its own independence, as working on its own, but at the same time, having to share a space, in a sense, with a separate government, you are trying to work out a system whereby two sovereigns are somehow coexisting.

• 8:44Nick Capodice?

  Two sovereigns at once, it just seems impossible. And it's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that two governments are in charge. I mean, look at Arkansas. It doesn't seem like it could possibly work.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  It's very complicated. And there are three overarching principles that are helpful to keep in mind when it comes to this complicated idea of federalism.

• 9:03Hannah McCarthy?

  Principle number one.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  The first is that in the United States, the Constitution makes clear that the federal law wins if there's a conflict between the federal law and some sort of state law. If, for example, you think about a simple illustration, something like, imagine that there's a federal law that says if you package a certain product, the packaging needs to be blue. By contrast, you have a state law that purports to regulate the same product, and it says, no, if you package this sort of product, the packaging has to be red. In that case, it is impossible for a company to comply with both federal law and state law. There's a conflict, and as a result, the federal law controls, and the state law is no longer valid.

• 9:46Hannah McCarthy?

  Federal beats state. This is called the supremacy clause. The Constitution and federal law are the supreme law of the land. Principle number two.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  State governments are profoundly important in our country. And this is particularly true in areas where the federal government hasn't regulated very much, or maybe where the Constitution doesn't allow the federal government to regulate very much, or even in areas where the states just think it's very important to do some sort of lawmaking. Places where there, in particular, there's a lot of state law rather than federal law, are in areas like family law relating to marriage and divorce and the like, criminal law, property law, as well as laws relating to contracts.

• 10:31Hannah McCarthy?

  States are your primary lawmakers. Where you live in this country matters because states govern the bulk of your life. So even though the federal government is the top law of the land, state laws are closer to you, and there are more of them. Quantity over clout. All right, principle number three.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  The last principle that is really helpful to keep in mind when it comes to federalism is that because state governments are independent of the federal government, they not only are, as a practical matter, able to push back from, against the federal government if they so choose, they are also constitutionally protected in that sort of resistance. So if a state law disagrees with federal policy with respect to something like criminal law or immigration-related law, the states retain a constitutionally protected power to, in a sense, refuse to cooperate with the federal government.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  By contrast, if the states agree with the federal law, they can voluntarily choose to cooperate. The states retain the ability to make that decision. Now, there's limits to exactly how a state is able to do this, but the basic principle is embedded in the constitutional structure.

• 11:44Hannah McCarthy?

  For one thing, if state law contradicts federal law, the federal government can choose to enforce the supreme law of the land. Can, being the operative word, it often opts not to. And then we've got the Tenth Amendment. That's the one that says that the federal government only has the powers that are actually listed in the Constitution. All other powers are reserved for the state or the people to decide.

• 12:15Nick Capodice?

  Right, the Tenth Amendment sort of follows the Ninth Amendment to address the concerns that Hamilton had and Madison had about your rights being constrained by the Constitution. The Ninth says your rights are not limited to what's in the Constitution, and the Tenth says whatever's not addressed here is left up to the states.

• 12:29Speaker 05

  Remember, the people who wrote the Constitution were first and foremost politicians. They weren't philosophers, they weren't saints, they certainly weren't political scientists, but they knew a lot about those things. What they were interested in was making sure that a new government could protect their states and accomplish national purposes, but at the same time, not destroy the vital interests of their states.

• 12:57Hannah McCarthy?

  This is Dave Robertson.

• 12:59Speaker 05

  Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

• 13:06Hannah McCarthy?

  Dave tells this story about a group of Russians visiting the university. The visitors are all interested in civics, and Dave is trying to explain how the US government works through this principle of federalism.

• 13:16Speaker 05

  I started by showing them what they can see every day they're in the United States. I showed them a variety of license plates. Because just about any place you go in the world, you have very boring license plates, and they look similar to license plates in other countries. I think of Europe along those lines. Well, in the United States, if somebody is driving you around, you can see all of these fancy-looking license plates with different colors, different sayings, and different kinds of designs. And I tried to explain, if you want to understand federalism, you have to understand that states

• 13:56Speaker 05

  can do a whole lot of things differently that are not done differently in lots of other countries.

• 14:03Hannah McCarthy?

  Dave points out to his Russian visitors that the 50 disparate chunks of our country are called states, like independent, self-governed mini-countries inside of a bigger country. And the framers had just come through the Revolutionary War, where they broke off from Britain, this big, powerful government. Just try and tell some of these scrappy little states that you're going to impose a big, strong, federal government on them. Some states were going to benefit, others, though, would get short shrifted. Alexander Hamilton, for example, wanted a strong federal government because it would benefit his state, New York.

• 14:36Speaker 05

  He wanted lots of tools for the federal government to control trade and to help nurture economic development, and to do other kinds of things that would build manufacturing in the United States. Madison and Jefferson represented Virginia, which was a state that made a lot of money by growing crops and shipping them overseas. Trade restrictions, tariffs, the development of a manufacturing economy would tend to benefit states like New York, Hamilton states. And it would disadvantage a state like Virginia and other southern states that grew crops

• 15:20Speaker 05

  for export to Europe and to elsewhere. Those economic differences, along with philosophical differences about which level of government exercise which powers, really helped drive a wedge between Madison and Hamilton and helped spur the creation of national political parties.

• 15:41Nick Capodice?

  Okay, so there's that North versus the South from the get-go, and we all know what happened next.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  Because states decided that they could get out of the Union, and that was contested. It wasn't settled by a court, it wasn't settled by a political compromise, it was settled by bloodshed, lots of bloodshed. An incredibly brutal war in which one side surrendered, and surrendered that right to leave the Union forever, at least as long as our Constitution stays in effect.

• 16:13Hannah McCarthy?

  While the South was in secession, the Republicans, led by Lincoln, leveraged federal power to help industry, commerce, even education. The tendrils of strong government eventually led to a nationalized railroad system and telegraph system. The economy boomed, and industry ruled for years. But as farms dwindled, factories rose, and the population exploded, you also started to see extreme poverty. And so state and federal government needed to start working together.

• 16:43Speaker 05

  The result was a progressive movement that aimed to help create partnerships between the national government, whose powers were limited by the Supreme Court, and the states. So in that period, you saw lots of federal efforts to try to connect with the states, to build highways, to extend vocational education, even to extend, for a time, help for mothers and children. Almost any innovation you can think of that is now a federal program, whether you're talking about welfare programs, you're talking about civil rights programs, or talking about

• 17:24Speaker 05

  environmental programs, all of those things have been innovated, often at the local level in cities, then spreading to the states, and finally being adopted by the federal government. That's part of the story of what happened in the 1960s and 70s with environmental policy.

• 17:42Nick Capodice?

  Wait, almost any federal program starts at the state level? What about something like Social Security?

• 17:47Speaker 05

  Aid to mothers with children, the states had innovated those things. Even unemployment compensation is a federal-state program because the states of Ohio and Wisconsin had pioneered those before the federal. Federal government got involved.

• 18:04Nick Capodice?

  Maybe you're aware of data brokers. Maybe you're not. You should be. And as much as I wish that data brokers was just Brett Spiner managing real estate, it is not. Data brokers are out there, thousands of them. And what they're doing is they are collecting every single thing about you that exists on the internet. And they're taking that huge pile of data and they are selling it to the highest bidder. And unlike Commander Data on the USS Enterprise, these guys are up to no good. So if you want help removing your data from the internet before it gets brokered out, you should check out Incogni.

• 18:45Nick Capodice?

  Incogni takes care of this massive first step in data protection. They help you remove that personal data from the web and they handle the entire process. So to take that first step, to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com/civics. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I.com/civics, or just click the link in the episode description box. Again, that's incogni.com/civics. Make it so. I know data never said that.

• 19:23Hannah McCarthy?

  The older I get, the more I am looking for truly lovable closet staples that I know I will reach for just as often next year as I do right now. I want a closet that doesn't need constant updates or replacements, just high-quality clothes that last, especially the kind with tags that say 100%, as in 100% Mongolian cashmere, 100% mulberry silk, 100% organic cotton, just like the Quince Fisherman Cropped Cardi and I am wearing right this very second. This sweater has kept its shape, color, and softness for years now. I reach for it every single fall, every time I want a warm and elevated look. Quince gives you the quality you expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price

• 20:07Hannah McCarthy?

  tag. Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's a great way to support the show.

• 20:35Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming, and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one, because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one-stop-shop platform for making a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to

• 21:18Nick Capodice?

  buy. So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

• 21:38Nick Capodice?

  Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold-weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots, and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan, and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance and new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 22:07Nick Capodice?

  So what if the federal government kicks off a program that was, like, litmus-tested in Iowa, and Kansas says, no, heck no, we don't need a national speed limit?

• 22:17Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, for one thing, let's say the federal government is providing money to replace all the speed limit signs in your state. Kansas can be like, we don't need your filthy money.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  Yes, there's lots of instances of that. There are states that reject the money because they don't want to deal with the regulations. But that doesn't last long, because there's often a provision that allows the federal government to come in and begin to implement the rules if the state doesn't decide to join in. That happened with the Clean Air Act. The state of Arizona didn't join in for a good number of years. And it has happened with a lot of more conservative states and the Affordable Care Act.

• 23:04Hannah McCarthy?

  And, Dave says, even in cases of federal law, the bulk of the implementation of those laws tends to fall to the states.

• 23:12Speaker 05

  We think about all of those federal regulations that the EPA issues as being federal rules, and they are. But in case after case, the states actually administer those laws. So that the states regulate about 90% of most of the regulations of the environment that the federal government issues. The states do things differently, and they have a lot of power to do important things differently. It's not that in theory, federalism matters. It's in practice, states rule most of our lives in many everyday ways, from birth to death.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  New Yorkers won't have to choose between just two gender categories and a birth certificate. Yesterday, the Florida House passed a bill the Senate had already passed that creates the state's fifth school voucher program. They're introduced at the Ohio State House could mean teenagers have to wait until they are 16 and 1/2 years old to get that driver's license.

• 24:16Speaker 07

  Arkansas lawmakers could limit who would benefit from the minimum wage increase that vote. First time Louisiana has a minimum age for marriage, 16. New Orleans physician assistant dying legislation approved by the legislature. The law making the provision permanent was signed today.

• 24:42Nick Capodice?

  But I keep coming back in my mind to the Little Rock Nine. They were forced out of the school, and then the school was shut down by illegal measures. How did Arkansas get away with it?

• 24:55Hannah McCarthy?

  In the end, they didn't. Federal law ended up beating state law, as it's supposed to. In 1959, a federal court struck down Governor Faubus's school-closing law, and that August, Little Rock's white schools opened with black students in attendance. The state public school system was fully integrated by 1972.

• 25:15Nick Capodice?

  But that is so long. That's, what, 15 years to implement a federal law? And one of the most significant federal laws our country has ever witnessed, "separate but equal" is not equal? I feel, Hannah, to an extent, if it weren't for this give-and-take between the state and the federal, where obstinate racism was given its say on the state level, those schools would have integrated a lot sooner. I mean, is federalism actually good for American democracy?

• 25:46Speaker 05

  It's essential for democracy to have a competing party that is protected from eradication. And in the United States, state governments help provide a place where opponents of the incumbent administration can thrive, where they can really build up a coalition of opposition to the people in power. Sometimes, you know, we, often being partisans, don't like that. Some Democrats didn't like opposition from conservative states to Barack Obama. Some conservatives now don't like opposition to Donald Trump. But in the end, we have

• 26:31Speaker 05

  to have a system where a president doesn't have the power to eliminate his opponents. There's a great photograph from 2012 where Barack Obama is on a tarmac in Arizona, and the diminutive governor of Arizona, a woman, is lecturing him and pointing her finger at his chest. She's opposing him. She's criticizing him for all kinds of things, including Obamacare. But as I tell visitors from other countries, like Russia, Barack Obama cannot fire her.

• 27:12Speaker 05

  He can't get rid of the legislature in the state of Arizona. He can't eradicate that opposition. And if there's one thing that democracy needs, that a republic needs, it's opposition to anybody who's in power.

• 27:28Nick Capodice?

  So it feels like federalism is like the firewall of our democracy. It is ambiguous, and frustrating, and imperfect, but it helps keep this bird up in the air.

• 27:42Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, I think even though so many of us bristle at it, it's essential that we are a country that is not of one mind. And sometimes that's really ugly. But so long as we're allowed not only to disagree, but disagree to the point of combating laws and taking those laws to court, and even finding our own way to use those laws to govern ourselves, that decentralized power is what makes this country so unusual. It's a mess. It's chaotic. But that's the way it's supposed to work.

• 28:27Speaker 07

  And I've enjoyed weed since Vietnam. And I think it's time for the whole United States, steadily, to legalize it. When did it become unconstitutional to exclude?

• 28:44Speaker 05

  Homosexual couples for marriage. The state's Living, Infants, Fairness and Equality, or LIFE, Act bans all abortions after fetal heartbeat is detected. So far, eight states and Washington DC have legalized the drug for recreational use. The unborn deserves an up and down vote right yet to live.

• 29:03Hannah McCarthy?

  In Salt Lake City, yet another victory for gay rights advocates across the nation. Marijuana has long been classified as a Schedule I drug. That's the same classification for drugs such as heroin.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  A lot of them are pretty obviously contradictory to Roe v Wade and other Supreme Court precedents on abortion. The state of California now wants to allow same-sex marriage. It can repeal that constitutional amendment.

• 29:32Nick Capodice?

  I'm just, I'm just excited to get home, get out of the cold and finally get to use legally for like the first time ever.

• 29:52Nick Capodice?

  This episode was made by Hannah McCarthy with me, Nick Capodice. Civics 101 staff includes Rebecca Lavoy, Taylor Quimby, Marina Henke and Dana Cataldo. Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound, Blue Dot Sessions and Chris Zabriski. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

• 30:15Speaker 05

  What does it really take to start a startup? I'm David Rosenko, entrepreneur, investor and the host of Leap Forward. In each episode, I go behind the scenes with successful founders and someone who knew them before they were famous. Their college roommate, their first employee, or their mom. To hear the sometimes uncomfortable, but very real inside stories of how companies actually get built. Companies like Reddit, Airbnb, or Twitch. Listen to the new season of Leap Forward for never-before-heard stories behind the world's most iconic companies.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 31:17Speaker 05

  Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com/switch.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com.