The national drinking age in the US is 21, but the federal government didn’t pass a law directly mandating this. Instead, they passed a law that would prevent federal highway funds from being given to states that didn’t change their drinking ages to 21.
My question is: Have the courts ever recognized any limits to this power? Has a highway funds law ever been overturned on the grounds that the federal government is trying to do indirectly what it couldn’t do directly?
Read South Dakota v. Dole. The Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote held that such a scheme was okay so long as the withholding of funds wasn’t “coercive” and found that a 10% penalty (as imposed by the national drinking age law) wasn’t coercive. I suppose there is a cutoff point, but it hasn’t been tested.
But the answer to your question is no. Only three laws since the New Deal have been found to violate the interstate commerce clause. The feds could probably pass a national 21 year old drinking age law without the subterfuge. If they can outlaw certain drugs entirely under the ICC, then they could surely regulate purchase ages of alcohol.
The Commerce Clause might not be enough to allow Congress to regulate drinking ages directly, since the 21st Amendment grants the states most of the power to regulate alcohol. The Supreme Court said that the 10% penalty wasn’t enough to go against the 21st, but two dissenters disagreed even then specifically on 21st Amendment grounds.
The SCOTUS decision upholding Obamacare did strike down the Medicaid expansion mandate as being too coercive.
So the Congress may dangle a carrot to sway action on the part of the states, but if Congress also chooses to wield a stick it cannot be a sledgehammer.
IIRC, the federal government used a similar tactic to put in a national 65 MPH speed limit, and some states (mostly out West where there are huge wide-open spaces) just said “no thanks”, and set their limits higher. For a few years, Montana didn’t even have numerical speed limits at all.
55mph?
Of course, some of the states if they wanted to could play chicken.
If you’re Montana, for example, you don’t really need expressways much. The feds need good roads across the state for interstate traffic, more than you need fed funds for highways.
Chronos, what the heck is this conglomeration of poop?
Let me clean it up
*In 1974 the feds usurped the 10th Amendment with the highway funds blackmail and forced every state to post their highway limits @ no more than 55. This was in response to an oil embargo and was meant to save fuel.
*Later the feds made the limit permanent claiming highway fatalities went down after the law was implemented. While that was true, it wasn’t because of the lower limit. It was because gas prices had skyrocketed and people drove less. Folks can’t get killed in a car wreck when they’re not out driving, can they?
Several western states began issuing “energy wasting fines” rather than speeding tickets on their highways. This saved violators licenses and insurance rates. ** BUT THEIR LIMITS WERE POSTED AT 55!*
*In 1986, for 1 day, Nevada posted a limit of 70 to challenge the feds. They were the only state to post a limit other than that approved by the feds during the national speed limit tyranny.
*The feds raised the limit a bit to 65. This wasn’t exactly keeping a promise made by POTUS Reagan to dump the entire national speed limit.
*In 1995 the Republican controlled Congress passed a law repealing the entire national speed limit. President Clinton begrudgingly signed it, but only because there were enough votes for a veto override, and the bill included other things he wanted.
*From then until 1999 Montana had a “reasonable and prudent” daytime limit for cars and a 65mph nighttime limit. That was changed to a 75 all the time limit.
OK, so I didn’t remember correctly. But was I really so far off as to be “a pile of poop”?
Yes, because you’re much smarter than what you posted. It was pretty mixed up.
I’m thinking a lot of dopers are too young to remember the audacity of the national speed limit. It was absolute crap. And the SCOTUS ruling was as well. The END should not be tainted if the MEANS is. And federal law that prohibits a state from running it’s business the way it chooses, regardless of how the fed does it, should be construed as a violation of the 10th Amendment. Allowing the fed to circumvent the Bill of Rights by the means it did [does] is tyranny.
The national speed limit shows a fascinating perspective of what the American people get from different modes of governance on the same issue. From 1974-1995 U.S. Senators and Representatives from the majority of states continued to strongly support it, and consistently thwarted attempts to repeal it. Yet the moment the limit was raised in 1987 every state, via their own legislature, raised their highway limit. And after the NSL was completely repealed all but a few states raised their limits even higher.
If the national speed limit was so popular as proponents claimed, why did the individual states dump it as soon as they legally could?
The answer is, it wasn’t popular at all. Nobody obeyed it. And it even spurred a sub economy: an industry who’s products had a sole purpose of empowering people to break the law, i.e. radar detectors, scanners, and CB radios. All of which existed before the national speed limit, but were not possessed by very many prior to 1974. After that BILLIONS were spent on devices who’s sole purpose was to help someone circumvent the law.
People are also ignorant of the hundreds of millions of dollars the feds and the states spent to enforce this ludicrous law. I worked for an agency that was dumb enough to accept federal grants for radar units. Because we did we had to fill out these matrix forms about where we used them, average speeds, accident rates, fatality rates, etc. AFTER EVERY CITATION WAS ISSUED!!! It was extremely time consuming, and beyond the scope of a motor patrolmans m.o… It was also extremely difficult to issue someone a ticket for going 65 in a 55 on a highway that was posted at 70 just a few years prior.
I could on and on. The national speed limit was an failure that was disliked and unwanted by the people and the several states, but was continually thrust upon us as a boon. It was truly the emperors clothing.