In 2021, Congress enacted a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill designed to improve America’s crumbling roads, bridges, and water lines. The funds were appropriated by the federal government and then, on the basis of a number of criteria, including population, were parceled out among the states in the form of federal grants. From that point forward, the states had considerable discretion in setting funding priorities. Virtually all the states allocated money to the repair of roads and bridges, but each state sought to address particular problems.
For example, New York, whose largest city depends upon buses and subway lines, emphasized rapid transit improvements. Michigan, which has suffered from water contamination, allocated funds for the repair of water and sewer lines. Missouri, long a hub of America’s freight rail system, launched a program to repair and expand its freight yards. And California, whose aging port facilities played a role in America’s 2021 and 2022 supply chain problems, allocated billions for port improvements. The framers of the Constitution thought the states were often the best judges of their own citizens’ needs, and American federalism gives the states considerable policy-making leeway.
The Constitution’s framers wanted to build a strong national government but, at the same time, to ensure that government would not use its strength to oppress citizens. Federalism and the separation of powers are two of the most important ways that the framers hoped to achieve this goal.
Federalism seeks to limit government by dividing it into two levels: the national level and the state level. Often the two levels must cooperate; for example, as we saw above, state governments depend upon federal dollars to finance badly needed programs while, as we shall see below, federal agencies rely on state and local officials, such as police officers, to help enforce immigration laws. Yet each level retains sufficient independence to compete with the other, in this way restraining the power of both.
The separation of powers, for its part, seeks to limit the national government’s power by dividing government against itself—by assigning the legislative, executive, and judicial branches separate but overlapping functions, thus forcing them to share power. James Madison, the Constitution’s chief architect, wrote in Federalist 51 (reprinted in the Appendix), “The interior structure of the government” must be arranged so “that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.” Dividing power might sometimes make government less efficient—promote “gridlock,” as we might say today—but the framers thought this was a price worth paying to guard against oppressive governmental action.
Do federalism and the separation of powers make government more representative? Do they make government more effective?
As to representation, federalism and the separation of powers are among the building blocks of America’s complex system of representative government. State governments are elected by constituencies (groups of voters) that differ from one another and from the constituencies that elect members of the national government. At the national level, each senator, each member of the House, and the president are all elected by different (albeit overlapping) constituencies. This system ensures some form of representation for every nook and cranny of the United States, while virtually guaranteeing that the nation’s elected officials, in representing the interests of different constituencies, will seldom see eye to eye.
Both federalism and the separation of powers complicate policy making in the United States. If governmental power were arranged neatly and simply in a single hierarchy, decisions could certainly be made more easily and efficiently. But would they be better decisions? The framers thought that although complexity, checks and balances, and institutionalized second-guessing are messy, they would allow more interests within society to have a voice and would eventually produce better results. Along the way, these decision processes would help preserve liberty and prevent tyranny. Although this complexity sometimes seems to make it impossible to get anything done collectively, political decision makers have developed a variety of strategies for overcoming the barriers to policy change. Let’s see how this complex system works.