According to a recent SDMB discussion about the Euro, most EU countries tend to ignore at least some EU rules that they consider inconvenient. This would never fly in the United States – witness the uproar over Arizona trying to enact its own immigration policies. So it would seem that the European Parliment has little respect, and hence little real-world power.
On paper (the Constitution), the US would be high on the OP’s list as 50 sovereign states that create one nation.
In actuality, the relationship between the Feds and the States is more like a State/Counties relationship.
As it happens Bavaria never joined the federation, but is still looked upon as a member state.
I’d suggest Somaliland and Puntland. They have autonomous governments from Somalia, issue their own visas and control their own ports of entry.
Kurdistan is a region of Iraq with a fair amount of autonomous control.
Northern Ireland as part of the UK is worth considering too.
In practice I suspect the different regions of the DR Congo have complete control over themselves - they’re thousands of miles apart and not even connected by roads, let alone any other form of overground transport.
This is a common misconception particularly among (royalist) Bavarians, but nevertheless untrue.
I would have to disagree, for two reasons. First, the courts have interpreted the division of powers as being two lists: one for Parliament, and one for the provinces. The federal government has to rely on a particular head of power to support a federal law.
Second, one of the major areas of provincial jurisdiction is s. 92(13), “property and civil rights within the province.” The courts have given a very broad interpretation to this provision, notably that it includes commercial transactions within the Province; as a result, the federal trade and commerce power is limited to commercial transactions that cross provincial or international boundaries. It is a much more limited federal power than the US federal commerce clause power.
Malaysia is another candidate for decentralized federation (although I agree that the UAE is even more decentralized). Malaysia is a federation of thirteen states (plus three territories)-- and most of those states are themselves monarchies.
Then what is the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)?
Perhaps it is only a matter of semantics…
Municipal Police
State Police
Sheriff’s Department
FBI Agents
Enola Straight: “Police power” in this context is not law enforcement but the general power of government to legislate and regulate the public health, safety, welfare and morals. Put somewhat simplistically, it’s the power to pass and enforce any law on any subject not constitutionally forbidden.
In the United States, the states have the police power. A state doesn’t have to point to a clause in its constitution saying it can do something. The Federal government doesn’t have the police power* so any federal law has to have some clause in the U.S. Constitution that authorizes it. For most things the Feds do outside the military and foreign relations, its either the spending clause or the interstate commerce clause.
*Nitpick for Mr Downtown ;): the Federal government has the police power in federal enclaves such as Washington DC and the unincorporated territories. But that police power itself comes from a clause in the U.S. Constitution.
I’m afraid I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. Both Canada and the United States are countries governed by the rule of law and their Constitutions, which are the supreme law in each country. When we are discussing the authority of the federal governments and the state/provincial governments, it’s the respective Constitutions which govern.
In any event, I don’t think it is the case that the US is a “very loose collection of strong states”, nor that “Canada has much stronger federal government.” With respect to the United States, it’s true that when the U.S. Constitution was first ratified at the end of the 18th century, the federal government had much more limited powers than it does now. However, there have been two significant trends which have greatly increased the constitutional authority of the U.S. federal government.
The first of these trends has been the passage, over the past ~140 years, of constitutional amendments which have greatly expanded the authority of Congress, particularly with respect to the states. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 24th and 26th all gave Congress powers to enact laws to enforce those amendments. That is the authority for many of the federal laws applicable to the states in relation to civil rights, such as the right to sue in Federal Court for a violation of one’s civil rights by a state official. These amendments also have authorised the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal Department of Justice the power to supervise state elections to ensure they do not violate the ciivl rights of voters in state elections. These are extensive federal powers to supervise the conduct of the states.
The other major trend over the past century has been a very expansive reading of federal powers by the Supreme Court of the United States, notably the commerce clause and the “necessary and proper” clause. The Court’s expansive reading of those federal powers has enabled a wide variety of federal legislation directly affecting individuals and states, in a manner that was not recognised two centuries ago. For example, portions of the civil rights act have been considered to be enacted under commerce clause authority, such as fair housing laws. Federal laws regulating the economy can now be quite broad, such as the law creating the national Securities Exchange Commission. One can debate whether the SCOTUS has taken the right approach to these issues, but there is no doubt that the US Constitution, as interpreted by the Court, now gives the federal Congress very broad legislative powers.
The federal government in Canada does not have any of these powers. In fact, when our Charter of Rights was enacted in 1982, it expressly provided that nothing in the Charter expanded the legislative authority of either Parliament or the Legislatures. Parliament does not have any authority to enforce the Charter or civil rights against the provinces, nor does the Federal Court have any jurisdiction to hear civil rights actions against the Provinces. If an individual thinks that a province has infringed on their rights under the Charter, the remedy is to sue the provincial government in the provincial courts, or to lodge a complaint against the provincial government under provincial human rights laws.
Nor has the Supreme Court of Canada given an expansive interpretation to the federal Parliament’s legislative powers, notably the trade and commerce power. Just last month, the Court ruled that Parliament cannot unilaterally establish a federal securities regulator, unlike the powers of the federal Congress in the US. The only way to establish a national securities regulator in Canada is by joint federal-provincial action A year ago, the Court also rejected a federal attempt to regulate assisted human reproduction, ruling that only parts of the proposed federal legislation were within federal jurisdiction; other parts of the proposed bill could only be enacted by the provinces.
Given the major differences between the two constitutional systems on these key points, I continue to maintain that the US federal government is much stronger than the Canadian federal government, overall. (I recognise Hari Seldon’s point about the Canadian Parliament’s exclusive jurisdiction over the criminal law, which is a significant difference from the US system, but overall, the US federal government is more powerful.)
It would be remiss of me not to point out that implied federal powers have been a matter of settled law pretty much since the Constitution was ratified (at least since George Washington agreed to charter the First Bank of America).
It’s more a matter of where the Federal government derives its authority; it was formed by a group of sovereign states that got together and adopted a constitution. They delegated some of their powers to the Federal government, and reserved others.
That’s the difference- the powers of the Federal govermment are more or less devolved from the states themselves, rather than the other way around, like Scotland in the UK.
In practice, this means that there are areas and situations in which the Federal government does not and can not trump the states, and which the Federal government has no actual power.
For example, a state could decide to make it’s speed limits 100 mph and there’s not a damn thing the Feds could do about it. In practice, the Feds tend to do a lot of policy modification via granting or withholding of funds with strings.
Speed limits confuse the issue for most laymen because of the 1970s-80s experience with bribery to produce a uniform 55 mph limit.
A state such as Nevada can decriminalize gambling or prostitution and the federal government is powerless to overrule them. On the other hand, the federal government can attempt to ban handguns on school grounds, and learn that they cannot do such a thing because that power is reserved to the states.
The federal government certainly isn’t powerless to stop Nevada decriminalizing gambling and prostitution. Nevada, in fact, would make a particularly poor test case since the vast majority of gamblers and johns in Vegas are interstate travelers.
You can claim just about anything falls under the interstate commerce clause, but in practice, gambling and prostitution are things that are outside of the scope of the things granted to the Federal government in the constitution, and therefore fall under the purview of the States.
That’s the other thing about the state/fed relationship; anything not explicitly spelled out as being granted to the Feds in the Constitution or in subsequent legal decisions is by default a state issue.
This means that in order to make something a Federal issue, the Feds have to show (usually in the subsequent legal challenges) that the issue applies to all states or to some point of intrusion (interstate commerce clause).
I’d say the UAE (where I used to live). Abu Dhabi and Dubai have the real power but each of the 7 Emirates is quite independent:
- Able to take loans from other countries for example.
- Each Emirate issues their own residence permits (green cards).
What do you call Congress?
Depends, the Congress could try to occupy the field under the “General Welfare” Clause. GW is not only in the Preamble.
In fact, speaking of the GW clause as I mentioned above, the text of the law you link mentions the word WELFARE;
…Within such reasonable distance of any military or naval camp, station, fort, post, yard, base, cantonment, training or mobilization place as the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Air Force, or any two or all of them shall determine to be needful to the efficiency, health, and welfare of the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force…