Chapter 4 Exercises

These exercises ask you to put federalism reasoning to work on real institutional and political questions. They do not have single right answers; the goal is to build the analytical muscle for reading current federalism disputes — which you will encounter, in one form or another, every day for the rest of your political life.

Exercise 1 — Find your state's federal grant share

States differ substantially in how dependent their budgets are on federal money. Mississippi's federal share is well above the national average; Massachusetts's is well below. Knowing where your state sits on this spectrum changes how you should read state-versus-federal policy disputes there.

Task.

  1. Identify your state of residence (or, if you live abroad or in a U.S. territory, a state you have a connection to).
  2. Find the most recent year of state-level federal-grant data. Two reliable sources: - The National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) "State Expenditure Report," which is released annually and breaks down state spending by source (general fund, federal funds, other). Look for the chart showing federal funds as a share of total state spending. - The Pew Charitable Trusts' "Federal Funds and Fiscal Federalism" project, which tracks federal grants to states over time.
  3. Record three numbers: - Federal funds as a percentage of total state spending. - Federal Medicaid match rate (FMAP) for your state in the most recent fiscal year (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes this). - Federal share of your state's highway capital spending in the most recent year (the Federal Highway Administration publishes state-level data).

Reflection. Given those three numbers, how dependent is your state on federal money? Is your state above or below the national average? Now consider: if your governor or legislature wanted to defy the federal government on some policy question, what fraction of the state's budget would be at risk? What does that imply about how realistic state-level "resistance" rhetoric is in your state, regardless of which direction it cuts?

Exercise 2 — Map the policy variation

Federalism produces measurable policy variation across states. Pick one of the following issues and produce a 50-state classification.

  • Abortion access — categorize states as: ban (or near-total ban); substantial restriction (e.g., 6-week or 15-week limit); broadly permissive. The Guttmacher Institute and the Center for Reproductive Rights both maintain trackers.
  • Recreational marijuana — legal / medical only / fully prohibited. The Marijuana Policy Project tracker is a clean source.
  • Concealed carry — constitutional carry (no permit required) / shall issue (permit required, easy to get) / may issue (permit required, discretionary). The NRA-ILA and Giffords Law Center both track this; comparing their classifications is itself instructive.
  • Medicaid expansion — expanded / not expanded.
  • Minimum wage — group states by minimum wage band: at $7.25 federal floor / $7.26–$10.99 / $11.00–$13.99 / $14.00 or above.

Task. For your chosen issue:

  1. Produce the classification (a list or table of all 50 states by category, with D.C. as a 51st row).
  2. Calculate: how many people live in each category (use Census 2020 state populations, available at census.gov)? What percentage of the U.S. population lives under each policy regime?
  3. Identify any patterns: is there a regional cluster? A partisan cluster (cross-reference with 2024 presidential vote)? A demographic cluster?

Reflection. Brandeis defended federalism as a system in which states would experiment, learn from each other, and converge on better policies. Your data tells you whether that is happening on your chosen issue, or whether the pattern is sustained divergence. What does the data show? If divergence is sustained, what would it take to produce convergence — federal legislation, a Supreme Court ruling, a shift in public opinion within particular states?

Exercise 3 — Trace a Commerce Clause case

Choose one of the following Supreme Court Commerce Clause cases:

  • Wickard v. Filburn (1942) — homegrown wheat
  • Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) — public accommodations and civil rights
  • United States v. Lopez (1995) — guns near schools
  • Gonzales v. Raich (2005) — medical marijuana
  • NFIB v. Sebelius (2012) — individual mandate
  • Murphy v. NCAA (2018) — sports betting and anti-commandeering

Task. Without consulting a textbook treatment of the case, look up the actual opinion (Cornell's Legal Information Institute is free and searchable: law.cornell.edu/supremecourt). Read at least the syllabus and the majority opinion. Then write a 400–600 word analysis answering:

  1. What was the federal statute at issue, and what did it do?
  2. What was the Commerce Clause theory of the case — what activity did Congress claim it could regulate?
  3. What did the Court hold, and on what reasoning?
  4. What was the dissent's strongest argument? (If there is no dissent, what is the strongest argument someone could have made against the Court's holding?)
  5. How does this case fit into the era of federalism it occurred in (dual / cooperative / new / asymmetric)?

Reflection. Lawyers spend years learning to read Supreme Court opinions analytically. The opinions are written, in significant part, to be readable by literate non-lawyers, but they require attention. After completing this exercise, you should have a baseline sense of the genre, the move-by-move reasoning, and the role of dissent. Did anything surprise you? Did the Court's reasoning feel rigorous, or did it feel like working backward from a conclusion?

Exercise 4 — Steel-man both sides

Pick a federalism dispute currently active in American politics. Possibilities:

  • Federal preemption of state climate regulation. Should Congress preempt state and local climate regulations (California's emissions standards, state cap-and-trade programs)?
  • State sanctuary policies. Should the federal government penalize jurisdictions that refuse to assist federal immigration enforcement?
  • State abortion bans. Should Congress pass federal legislation overriding state abortion bans (or a federal abortion ban overriding permissive state laws)?
  • Federal marijuana descheduling. Should the federal government remove marijuana from Schedule I, leaving regulation entirely to states?
  • Federal voting standards. Should Congress impose national rules for early voting, voter ID, mail voting, etc.?
  • Federal preemption of state firearm regulation. Should Congress preempt state gun-control laws (or, conversely, preempt state preemption of local gun-control ordinances)?

Task. Write a 600–900 word essay structured as follows:

  1. Statement of the issue. What is the specific federalism question? Be precise. Who is doing what to whom, and what is the constitutional or political objection?
  2. The strongest progressive argument. What is the best version of the case that aligns with progressive policy goals? Cite the actual reasoning offered by serious progressive scholars or politicians, not the worst Twitter version.
  3. The strongest conservative argument. What is the best version of the case that aligns with conservative policy goals? Cite the actual reasoning offered by serious conservative scholars or politicians.
  4. The federalism principle each side is appealing to. Note carefully — is each side appealing to a general principle (states are sovereign, the federal government is supreme) or to an instrumental principle (this particular state-versus-federal arrangement happens to favor my preferred policy)? Be honest. On most issues, both sides are partly instrumental; that is not a defect, but recognizing it is part of analytical maturity.
  5. Your tentative view. Now offer your own view, but with a constraint: you must acknowledge the strongest counter to your position, and explain why it does not change your conclusion.

The trick of this exercise: if you can do step 5 without having genuinely been moved by the strongest counter-argument, you have not done step 4 honestly. The discipline is to feel the pull of the other side's best argument before responding to it. This is the central skill of political reasoning, and it is harder than it sounds.

Exercise 5 — Democracy Audit: federal money in your district

This is the running progressive project of this textbook — by the end, you will have built a portrait of how American government works in your specific congressional district. This chapter's contribution focuses on the money flows.

Task.

  1. Identify your congressional district. (If you don't know it, enter your address at house.gov to find your representative.)
  2. Find your county's federal-funds-received profile. The U.S. Census Bureau's "Consolidated Federal Funds Report" was discontinued in 2010, but USAspending.gov has substantially better data going forward, including obligations and outlays by county. Use it.
  3. Identify three specific federal-funding flows into your district: - The largest grant program (likely Medicaid, but check). - The largest direct payment category (Social Security, veterans' benefits, agricultural subsidies, depending on your district). - Any specific federal contract spending in your district (defense contractors, federal infrastructure projects, university research grants).
  4. Identify a single federal mandate or condition that affects how state or local government in your district operates (e.g., the Americans with Disabilities Act for public buildings, the IDEA for special education in local schools, NEPA for federally funded infrastructure).

Reflection. A few questions to think about:

  • How much federal money flows into your district per year? Per resident, how does that compare to federal taxes paid by district residents (approximate, using state-level data — most states are net recipients or net donors of federal funds, which is itself a federalism dynamic worth noticing)?
  • Where does the money go? Is it overwhelmingly entitlement spending (Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid) or discretionary (infrastructure, education, research)?
  • Does your representative's voting record on federal spending align with the actual federal-spending interests of your district? (You can pull voting records from GovTrack.us.)
  • Does your district have a higher or lower federal-spending dependence than the average congressional district? What does that imply for how much leverage federal policy has on local conditions?

Deliverable. A one-page memo summarizing what you found. Save it. You will return to it in later chapters when we discuss congressional appropriations (Ch 9, 11), the bureaucracy (Ch 11), and policy implementation in your specific district (Ch 27–32). The Democracy Audit is cumulative; this is the federalism layer.

Optional extension: the dual-citizenship test

A thought experiment to close. Imagine the United States dissolved its federal structure tomorrow — became a unitary republic with all current federal laws applied uniformly across the country and all state-level variation eliminated. Which of the policies you currently live under would change? Which would stay the same? Now imagine the opposite: the federal government dissolved into the states tomorrow, with all federal authority returned to the 50 states. What would change? Which level of government does most of the practical governing in your daily life — the federal or the state? Most students, when they do this exercise carefully, are surprised by the answer.

The point is not that one of these counterfactuals is preferable. The point is that federalism — the mixed, layered, contested system — is producing the actual policy outcomes you live under. Understanding which level is responsible for what is the first step in understanding how to change anything.