> Federal n. formed by a compact between political units that surrender their individual sovereignty to a central authority but retain limited residuary powers of government
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/federal
Senate representation is by state, 3/4 states have to ratify Constitutional amendments, the Constitution reverses rights for states, etc.
The Civil War was fought over the right of states to break their contract, not the importance of existent states as political units.
So let's not say "the right of states to BREAK their contract" and instead say "the right of states to EXIT their contract".
The Constitution supersedes state law, yes, but random federal statutes do not.
That said, the states are still considered sovereign and residents of the several states live under a dual sovereignty of their state and the US government. Sometimes this leads to unpleasant consequences, such as being charged for the same crime in both state and federal courts because the Double Jeopardy clause of the constitution is considered to only prevent double prosecution under the same sovereignty.
How does that mesh with the states legalizing marijuana?
I was listening to the Freakanomica podcast last week and it was discussing the power of the president and one commenter said that one of the presidents "real" powers is selecting which laws to enforce (via their Attorney General) there could be some huge battles coming up. Ironically if the Feds choose to enforce the federal laws in states which have legalized marijuana it would be contrary to the emphasis on states rights eschewed by most conservatives.
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/how-do-you-pronou...
Turns out there is a multitude of pronunciations to choose from.
Which is absolute madness.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
The short version is that the federal government has the power to pass laws, but under federalism, the states are not obligated to help the federal government enforce those laws.
That's how sanctuary cities and the like are born -- by states simply refusing to assist the federal government in their endeavors.
State marijuana legalization is a slightly different animal. On the one hand, they're exercising their anti-commandeering power (by refusing to arrest marijuana users). On the other hand, they're directly defying the supremacy clause by passing laws contrary to the federal laws, which is a step beyond anti-commandeering.
It hasn't been tested in court, but a likely argument would be one based on Marbury v Madison, in which the relevant portion is that congress may not pass an unconstitutional law. American jurisprudence tells us that an unconstitutional law need not be enforced by any court, officer or person, as an unconstitutional law is not a law at all. The states, if challenged, could assert that a federal ban on marijuana is unconstitutional on its face as it flies in the face of both the 9th and 10th amendments (and possibly the 5th, with maybe a sprinkling of the 14th, depending).
Of course, that hasn't happened, and this is all conjecture, and it's a crapshoot as to whether or not it would work, but it's not impossible that the federal government hasn't exerted too much top down pressure on early marijuana states because they wouldn't want to chance the precedent of losing.
This part sounds critical, but I don't quite follow. If you're willing to expand on that, I'd love to hear about it.
So, the general principle is that 1) Congress doesn't have the power to do anything that they are not expressly authorized to do by the constitution, or that is not obviously implied by an enumerated power (for example, if I expressly enumerated you the power to apportion the jelly beans, it would be implied that you could count the jelly beans, audit the jelly beans, etc.) Because congress is not expressly enumerated any power to make marijuana illegal, the states (if challenged) could assert that they have neither an enumerated or implied power to do so, and the laws that they made to illegalize marijuana consumption were not constitutional to begin with. Under the interstate commerce clause[5], they may have the ability to 'regulate' the sale and/or distribution of marijuana, but banning it for private consumption may be a bridge too far considering...
The Ninth Amendment, which states "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," combined with the Tenth Amendment, which states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," means that the powers of the federal government should not be used to take powers away from the citizenry, and that any powers not delegated to the federal government (expressly or implied) are reserved to the states or the people. It is this last clause that allows states to decline orders by the federal government where are not obviously granted those powers to the federal government by the constitution.
Put simply, the general position is that the federal government has supremacy on matters that the constitution says it should, but should defer to the people or the states on powers the constitution doesn't mention. Because the federal government doesn't have the power to ban marijuana, then the states could argue that, and assert their own soveriegnty on its regulation. Because the states would be granting more rights to the people than the federal government in this scenario, and because the burden of enforcing it would be exclusive to the individual states, they would have a pretty good claim on grounds of federalism.
[1] - http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/16amjur2nd.htm
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_United_States_Co...
State legalization of marijuana just means you can't be prosecuted under state law.
It is still illegal under federal law, though the current administration is presently not prioritizing enforcement of federal law regarding marijuana when the offense is within the scope permitted under state law.
Anyway, North and South Dakota where split simply to add 2 senators at the time. DC is not a state for the opposite reason. Face it, states are completely arbitrary lines on a map.
There is even a poorly drawn line approximately on the 37 degrees north was codified without reference to where the actual 37 degrees north actually was.
Originally DC residents would vote in Virginia or Maryland Congressional elections depending on where the territory was taken from (note: all DC land that came from VA has been returned to VA).
I think the idea originally is few would live in DC; it was tiny for a long, long time. But that's no longer true, hence why we gave DC the right to vote for President. Congress would be trickier given the balance of power, but none of the original motivating factors apply.
(I think DC statehood does sound like a complicated mess, and the best solution -- if politically feasible -- would be to shrink it. You'd have the populous city of Washington, MD, and a tiny federal District of Columbia, coexisting like Rome and the Vatican. The problem is that Maryland doesn't want it.)
You are certainly not from Texas. Stop trying to believe it is leaning center and will someday be democrat/liberal. Texans are the most prideful about their state and are proud of their rich history unlike other top states like California and New York.
That's just one of several very blue parts of a overall Red state. Even with heavy gerrymandering and only 1 close race Texas still sent Dem. 11 vs. Rep. 25 to the House.
And, what remains of state control ends up being a unwanted complexity to a lot of us.
Texans absolutely care about Texas history. You regularly hear the 'we have an independent power grid' and jokes about secession come up in conversation, etc. There are many possible reasons why Mitt Romney would have had a wider margin in Texas than Trump. It's premature to jump to the conclusion that it's turning 'purple or something'.
That being said, Texas is a bigger and more diverse place than popular culture respects. The center of Houston, Dallas, Austin, and similar zip codes are definitely 'blue' country.
Here is a small sample that shows some thoughts of the primary drafter of the Constitution(reference is Federalist Papers 45):
Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight, whose influence would lie on the side of the State. The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
I chose taxation as a topic only because Madison gave concrete numbers. Here:
* Using the number of tax collectors as a rough metric, the federal government was planned to be about 30-40 times smaller than all individual states combined. I don't know the 2016 figures.
* He affirms that the federal government "[...]will be exercised principally on external objects", which would seem to oppose redrawing state lines for the convenience of local matters(such as city boundaries). Though, if all states in question consented to having their borders redrawn, it does seem like the federal government should still at least approve.
So I'm not sure I buy this argument that the Federal government was designed at the outset to be this all-consuming entity that can stomp all over states however it pleases, though there certainly has been a recent trend that way. Hopefully the upcoming Supreme Court appointments can reverse this trend.
Given the topic, this sentence is also worth reading:
If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.
"Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty...whose influence would lie on the side of the State."