Cooperative Federalism

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COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM

The theory of cooperative federalism postulates that the relationship between the national government and the states is one in which: governmental functions typically are undertaken jointly by federal and state (including local) agencies, rather than exclusively by one or the other; a sharing of power characterizes an integrated system instead of an exclusive sovereignty at either level of government; and power tends not to concentrate at either level, or in any one agency, because the fragmented and shared nature of responsibilities gives citizens and interest groups "access" to many centers of influence.

Cooperative federalism is a modern phenomenon. Its main features—sharing of policy responsibilities and financial resources, interdependence of administration, overlapping of functions—are associated mainly with the federal grant-in-aid programs. Collaboration, grants-inaid from the national government to the states, bypassing of the states through establishment of grant programs aiding local or special-district governments directly, and development of auditing procedures and conditional grant requirements all have characterized cooperative federalism in the period after 1933.

Numerous analysts who celebrate these developments as signifying that old-style federalism is "dead," displaced by "intergovernmental relations," argue that the tension, pretensions at autonomy, and the notion of separateness of responsibilities that characterized governance in the pre-New Deal periods of constitutional development no longer form part of the reality of the federal system. Some scholars argue that relative power distribution is no longer a relevant issue. Forgotten is the elementary notion that "sharing" does not necessarily mean equality. Characteristically, in the modern grant-in-aid programs, the national government has not only raised and distributed the revenues, it has also designed the programs and established the goals, quite apart from overseeing administration.

Fascination with the alleged "non-centralization of power," which is seen to result from cooperative federalism, also can obscure the evidence of the vast additions of discretionary power in the national executive branch since 1933. Presidents from both parties have contributed to the growth of the "Imperial Presidency," and the process of centralization of power that has gone forward in this century has been profoundly influenced by this development.

The decision in massachusetts v. mellon (1923) established the juridical foundation of modern grant-in-aid constitutional theory. The Court there dismissed the complaint of Massachusetts that state prerogatives were improperly invaded by conditional grant programs (in that instance, the maternity-aid program of national grants). The interpretation of the tenth amendment as "but a truism," in united states v. darby (1941), further advanced the constitutional basis for cooperative federalism in action. Subsequently the Court upheld the principle of making grants conditional, even in Oklahoma v. United States Civil Service Commission (1947), when the federal legislation required adherence to hatch act restraints on political activity by state officials. A contrary note was sounded by the Court in national league of cities v. usery (1976), in which the Court asserted that "Congress may not exercise power in a fashion that impairs the states' integrity of their ability to function effectively in a federal system." Yet this assertion was made as the Court invalidated only a regulatory measure affecting hours and wages of local government employees, not a grant-in-aid or collaborative program. In garcia v. san antonio transit authority (1985) the Court overruled Usery, the majority declaring that case-by-case development since 1976 had failed to produce any principled basis for identifying "fundamental' elements of state sovereignty." The Court specifically cited the history of federal grants-in-aid as evidence that cooperative federalism and the political process gave adequate protection to the interests of the states.

Harry N. Scheiber
(1986)