AP Gov Chapter 3: Federalism Explained | Key Concepts & Court Cases

[00:00:01]hey YouTube CSM 10495 here um brand new school year some new people might be taking uh AP government or independent studying it um now I actually finished the course last year and I made a couple review videos of some early chapters uh chapter one and chapter 2 but um it seems like some other people on YouTube kind of like them so I guess uh I'll go back and try to make a couple other chapters so let's get this party started here we go we got chapter three Federal ISM now uh I'm really just taking apart the chapter to really give you what you need uh you know more so than reading the 30 pages of nonsense so here we go let me just tell you a little story there was someone named and I'm sorry my handwriting is just terrible on this uh LOM tablet so let's talk about this person susette kilo um so this person had some property okay we all like having property we all have houses and um this property uh officials really wanted to redevelop it they wanted to redevelop the property uh to change it into pricey tow houses malls and a large Hotel uh you know all of this would lead to more tax revenue and I guess even a better looking neighborhood leading to even more more money um and uh so there would be a lawsuit you know cuz the the city officials tried to um take over the property and this would go all the way up to the Supreme Court oops so now we have our good friends at the Supreme Court which we'll probably talk more about at a different chapter but uh they upheld the city's decision and they this is a landmark decision here um shows that wow I don't know how it spell it shows property can be seized for public use so yeah they could they they're allowed to take away your property if it's for the I guess even greater good of the public and um it can also this also kind of applies it could also be can be seized for um in order to develop the economy that's kind of weird I mean this doesn't come up too much I mean it does come up but it's kind of weird uh this isn't luckily this isn't taken to such an extreme level where they can say hey let's knock down these houses and rebuild them just to get more jobs but uh hey I guess we're kind of Lucky um that is in distressed or poor you know non-wealthy communities so yeah that's really so um anyway so why does federalism that that's really the introduction I'm not let's jump into how this gets into federalism so anyway the reaction to this decision um would result in policymaking um and it would even result in a you know because this really struck at home so lobbying would begin to you know get more popular I guess you know especially with something that could be so close to home and uh and as a result of this lobbying now let me just say this example is probably a little bit too specific but it just gets the point across I don't I don't believe on the AP they're going to ask anything this specific but hey you never know um lobbying more popular now this really led to 34 states out of there a few more I'm not really sure what year this was 34 states made it more difficult to seize property now they did this on per they excuse me they did this uh kind of to overlook what the state government's been saying about uh you know seasoning and all so States you know as a result of the grassroot LOB they went they said uh you can't seize this is really you know to say hey I'm doing something for you they can't seize your property because of what I'm saying you know because in the end the politics is all you know working for the people um in addition uh several other things uh the federal government has said have been changed by the states um another example would be the minimum wage the federal standard minimum wages whatever but a lot of states have uh about half of them at least have uh made their minimum wage higher than the federal level um so really the national government really leads into the decision not decision in administering and making of uh policies and and yet sometimes state government can also take uh a lead in making policy and leading off of what the national government has said to maybe better its people just a little bit more so um anyway that's just a little bit of a tidbit for you so let's just get back into f federalism federalism federalism a system it is a system in which national government shares power with local oops governments all right so really they're sharing power the federal government the state government they're both there they look at different things they work um you know alongside each other that's really the main point of federalism um the impact is widespread uh you could see from federalism you know a lot of things are getting done whether it's state LEL local local level or even Federal level this allows multiple me means to get things done so I guess that's a positive but um recently there's been attempts to and I guess the Republicans kind of you know with Romney uh versus Obama 2012 election uh the Republicans kind of follow this idea of devolution let TR to spell right Devolution which is um take power away from the federal government and put it back into state governments from heads give two states all right now um there's always been a tension between the federal government and I mean guess the excuse me the national government and the state government um let me just give some examples of tension uh just so we could see that you know they they were almost meant to work together at one point but now we've seen um tension so let's see some examples slavery of course you know some states wanting slavery some states not Civil War American history la la BL BL um social programs like welfare um whether you know what the retirement age should be social programs um states rights um which really kind of goes into nullification you know which is uh the idea that a state should be able to um nullify or declare an act of uh federal government to be non-applicable in their state and um I keep losing where this pointer is oops and of course mandates which which is when which are when um the feds say the states have to do something and and and uh more so it's really important because sometimes they don't even fund these so we'll get back to funding later so they have to do something an example was uh years ago uh the federal government man well actually no let's go now the drinking age is uh mandated at 21 I believe but it's not even really a law you get the state gets more funding if it does this and of course States want funding they need it so anyway so that's a mandate um okay so you've had a second to think about all that fun so government structure and assessment um let's just define government structure I guess why not all right so government structure is a political system political system with local government in addition to National now this is at least in our case okay now um and in our case the national government really does make uh the final decisions because in the end I don't know how to spell final decisions because you know if a state says something eventually federal government could fire back with a an amendment to the Constitution or something along those lines to uh say that hey you can't do that you know whatever the state said here is no longer valid so anyway um let's talk about two different types of governments I guess oops so we have Federal and we have unitary now um in some in most cases these two are very very similar in terms of structure it's just more of a matter of how they're applied so um federal government you know uh gives local government uh you know I guess more power while a unitary government you know uni means one uh I don't want to say federal government But Central go has most power and uh an example of each Federal governments Canada India Germany United States unary government France Great Britain Italy um so so why do we um you know what what leads us to protect uh subnational governments and you know you know why do we why do we keep this you know I guess we'll just say why you know why do we have government structure in such a way um well there there a couple factors one oh well we have a constitution that says it's going to be like this and of course we've interpreted it differently but uh in the end we really do get a mishmash of what the founders may or may not have meant um we really we're supposed to at least in theory we following the preferences of the uh civilians so you know we're supposed to be hey the government is supposed to be government for the People by the people in favor of the people so um yeah and also um I you know I think I think this really defines it pretty well actually um but let me just make a good distinction here uh I'm going to do this over here then the national government um doesn't really govern individuals so doesn't govern IND let me put a line here just to make sure I don't go into the other section so they don't really govern the individuals but um but the states do it to keep with national policy so the states really do the governing of individuals however they do keep it in line with national policy of course as I keep saying they can't go against something the federal government uh ruled on you know at least easily they'd probably get in a lot of trouble uh for an example of course see the Civil War but anyway so um is this uh are we are we is this good or bad so say g/b good or bad what we have here our federal system of government well you know let's let's see um there there is like a sense of confusion and um and the confusion really stems from you know who should do what and a good a big example of this was uh after Hurricane Katrina there was fighting between federal state and local levels as to who should provide funding uh who should uh send people to help out you know those in need and this really this really led to the First Responders and the dis disaster relief workers being nonmental you know volunteers Red Cross charitable organizations kicking in because uh the government agencies just they're not able to turn the wheels fast enough to figure out who should do what so um so some people you know I guess this could be similar to you know getting a law passed in that you know we need uh so much agreement that it um you know it could block progress and that's not good it could be you know gridlock making that's bad you know because if we want change we want it now no matter you know what the consequences should be it also uh there you know um therefore the more people in government their interests are protected so uh you know and usually the people in government are a little higher up on the social level than uh those outside of government so it also protects powerful interests you know that doesn't sound too good and so those are like bad you know I guess what people say would be bad are bad of a giant federal government like we have here but um let's just see let me just put a negative up here just so we know we're talking about the negative and up here positive I mean down here positive um you know we'll say hey we're big so we you know we're all together so we could be strong so there's strength uh you know we're so big we can be flexible as to how things should get done everywhere you know we're not going to be hard on it without a certain um policy shift or anything like that and at the same time hey there's so many of us let's stay free you know it' be really hard to take away freedoms when you have all those barriers in the way so hey I guess you know this blocking of progress maybe it leads to us keeping our freedoms hey I'll leave that up to your interpretation um let me just point that uh the Federalists you know we always go back to what the uh Founders thought so let me just mention that uh Federalists and this does come up on APS I remember um I remember seeing practice tests that had this Federalist um number 10 you know uh explained how they'd be worried that um small political units would be dominated by one uh by one uh you know probably larger conglomerate style fraction faction I hope I didn't say fraction May of so faction though so yeah so that's really the good or bad I mean also if let me just go back to the good or bad for a sec you know the Federalist 10 of course is important to know but another good I guess would be um you know since it's so big more uh political activity more people getting involved I guess even more people voting you know cuz especially you can especially see this when you compare the amount of people voting in um uh in like uh national elections to that of local the national election always has a higher percentage whether it not whether or not it's much higher um is uh not really important it just shows that uh we have more exposure to it as a result therefore maybe we even care about it more uh therefore leading to increased political efficacy but hey that's it's another chapter month or so away anyway the founding see after after you've gone through all this stuff uh once you'll see that everything really kind of links together and it's almost hard to talk about one topic without blabbing about another one so anyway the founding uh the founding of the country let's talk about what the founders wanted because that is a major theme of this uh course the found this pen is really annoying so the founders they really wanted uh state and federal governments to um not really to not have authority over another they not have authority over each other therefore um this would allow the people you know of which the power should derive to uh shift their support between factions uh much easier so that you know one or the other can't Trump the other one you know but this plan really it didn't it as we can see now it really didn't work out like that I mean and um you know when they were drafting this there was no historical president there was no um there was nothing ever like this before and well believe it or not it really didn't work out to be like that because as we know the the um federal government is much more powerful in the end than the state government um let's just mention uh the uh 10th Amendment it um it really it's an afterthought to the you know it's the last Amendment you of the Bill of Rights and it's such an afterthought it shows that they really weren't um they weren't I don't want to say they weren't thinking enough but you know all it does is say basically I'm going to put this in layman's terms whatever not given or denied from the federal government is the states so hey if this if if uh the Constitution's never mentioned something that the federal government can do then hey I guess the states can do it however um you know the elastic clause and the idea that the federal government can do whatever is necessary and proper kind of almost trumps this at times so it gets a little bit hairy it's very um vague language you know and I just mentioned that necessary and proper so uh let me write that down because that's definitely something important that's the elastic clause so necessary and pro BR so that says that the uh the federal government can do really uh whatever they need to uh make sure you know necessary and proper they can do whatever is uh necessary and proper it's so um this is called the elastic clause it really allows them to do things you know that weren't originally defined in the uh Constitution know it allows it to update with time I guess so yeah we we'll stick with that that seems to make sense um uh let's see let's just do a quick Hamilton verse Jefferson let's talk about their views on uh Supremacy so let's see so Hamilton whoops Hamilton wanted uh National Supremacy and an easy way to remember this is uh that Hamilton worked with the mint which is a centralized thing so you can remember you know he worked with a centralized uh governments so um you know he would want that to be more powerful therefore National Supremacy national uh national uh government Supremacy let me just make sure I make that obvious so national government Supremacy um Jefferson wanted a state Supremacy and uh his reasoning for this which kind of makes sense if you think about it this allows um gives the people more power because because the people live in the states and then you know they're able to elect people in the states much more easily than uh you know because they can elect on a local level if they really wanted much easier than on a federal level at least at the time you know there was no technology to see who is running and stuff like that so gives more um Power to people and we'll we'll come we'll come back to similar topic of of this nature in a few moments I believe so I take that in for a second all right let's get into uh well what does what does federalism mean I mean we've gone over the definition but um you know it was still at that time no one really knew Maybe you know they didn't know how it pan out they you know it's like writing the Constitution and all the interpretations over the years are different so um there was finally something that kind of defined um the state versus Federal level and uh that was the Supreme Court case you do need to know this this is important um m m verse Maryland and the idea was uh really the idea was can they tax a federal can a state tax a federal bank um and then furthermore could Congress Charter the a National Bank for the you know federal government so let's this really answered two questions um it said that yes Federal Government Can Charter Bank and uh this was because at that time you know with money and all this was considered to be necessary and proper hey it goes It goes back over there I told you it'd work out like that and um so hey the states want to tax that states want to get funding from the Federal Bank uh in terms of taxes well no States can't tax federal banks well wh why why can't they do that oh my God I can't believe it well they can't do that because guess what in the end as I pointed out earlier that's a badly drawn Arrow um the federal government is supreme and they don't want to be taxed they don't want to you know money out of this so why should they be taxed by something below them you know goes up the ladder so um so there you go I mean there's there's also um this idea of dual federalism and that really goes um along with an idea that uh National and uh state governments they can uh like almost work in their own spheres so they you know they each work on different things so they they don't um conflict with each other each having their own amount of power and um kind I guess I guess kind of an example of this I mean this is may or may not be a good example but we'll see you'll have to let me know if it works um interstate Comm you know trading among states Comm I might be wrong verse uh interestate which is you know so interestate is like a between state in wow I don't know how to talk either uh between states well interstate is uh Within State So within one state now guess what the um the state government is in control of this and the uh federal government is in control of this why you ask well because the state would be in control of its own Commerce what happens within the state well the national government would handle all um all times that that states are have to I guess work together for something you know sending from one state to another you know money shifting and all so the national government works to handle that they're in charge of that they could uh you know charge for that whatnot anyway um I you know I think that makes that may or may not be a good analogy for it but uh oh well I tried I tried my best anyway federal state relations so hey how do these two get along well there's one uh nice thing they grants federal grants so hey whoops that's the federal government uh giving money there's there's more on this later in the book I guess if I get to that chapter we'll talk more about it later but uh actually we'll talk a little now but it gets more in depth so um the grants um this is money given by the federal government to uh States so hey it's free money for us to do stuff with isn't that nice sounding and that stand started with u land land grants uh in the early years of the country you know to be money given to states to allow them to expand their borders and uh build you know give to people to build housing and continue onward I guess towards the frontier um and uh over time there would be uh more and more of these you know cuz more and more money coming from the Federal government to be uh used by the states so um so that would dramatically increase even um now why are these good so why are these so why are they so good excuse me um well they're so good because the federal government had now this is why is so good at first the federal government had budget surpluses you know so they had money uh this especially in the 1880s uh they also had the income tax which is more of a source for their Surplus um you know they could also print more money if they need you know inflation wasn't really as much of a factor then as it is uh especially now and they'd even you know they consider this the states consider this free money you know they were being given money that they could use in uh you know almost any way they wanted at first and they could use it for any way and and then uh you know if the if their uh constituents wanted something they could use it for that and get reelected it was a great cycle now um so around the 1960 the um even before then this uh this whole idea of free money started to change in that um there were restrictions applied to it so uh hey we're giving you this money you have to use it for this restrictions apply now um you know so the federal government be giving you money I guess with like string attached you could say and um and so you know that shifts the purpose used for the money now um now they're even you know over time the it's getting harder and harder to get grants especially now we're in a terrible not really terrible just not great Economic Times so it's getting uh tough to get money to uh you know get these grants so this is leading to uh lobbying in Washington you know and the lobbying hopefully will U make it easier not make it easier get more money for you know the state the person you know if I'm lobbying for New York I need money for New York and I get and you know I go you know and I get money back hey it looks great because we got more money and you know but poor California over there didn't get as much money because I got money so you know they're fighting in Washington over this you know they're fighting for their constituents and hey if they get it they're more likely to be elected in the long term so um let's talk about two different types of Grants so I I guess this does come up a little bit in the textbook here at this point we have um black grants and uh categorical Grant categorical grants now a BL Grant is um you know you C it's basically they're giving you money very few restrictions so hey you know it's almost free money again few restrictions now a categorical Grant categorical Grant is for uh specific purposes so specific you know you have to use this money for something and uh so that's almost like I guess you could no no no no you I mean that's almost like being having a string attached you they have to and even then a lot of the time you would need to put up some local money in order to get that categorical Grant so of course St States want this they want to be able to get money without you know without having to use it for for a certain thing they want money and then they could put a certain amount here certain amount here and you know that's better off for them um so uh over time both types of Grants would be used more and more however eventually categor categorical would be used more or and even grow faster and both of these are still used today but of course uh categorical is used more because you know we don't have the money to just give around so we need to find a specific reason and then we say here we'll give you the money use it for this specific reason and um so the receiving of this money has led to um you know almost like rivalries between the states and you can you can almost see this between um like a state like California that gets a certain amount of funding and a state like New Hampshire that gets a certain amount of funding and of course California thinks that they should get more you know a crazy amount more money because of their you know population size and in the small state like New Hampshire you know California might think oh they're getting too much money for their size you should take away their money and give it to us and it it leads to just fighting on uh Congressional floors and blah so that's increas um you know and then as I said with populations especially uh where is my pen okay with populations meaning so much uh the census you know that form every 10 years uh that count population is more important now because it really does determine the grants and funding per state because hey if there's another if there's a new 50 million people in New Hampshire I know it's a crazy number if there all of a sudden 50 million people who weren't in New Hampshire 10 years ago are now there their funding has to go up you know but if they don't fill out the census form they're not going to get their state is not going to get as much funding so just a little bit to think about so uh look this over for a second or two all righty we're almost done I'm getting I'm running out of spit here I'm getting tired all right so anyo uh federal aid and uh Federal control where's the pen where's the pen okay all right so um there's like a fear where're we're scared why are we scared we don't like having Washington uh DC control us you know and how does this control happen well they have the money we will do you know we will do what they need or what they want so we get money so we're scared you know they hold us in their hand and uh if they all of a sudden don't want to give us money we will not get as much money and it could significantly uh degrade things in a state you know hopefully it won't happen but you know it definitely is something to be a little scared of especially in an older uh country where technology wasn't so big you know they could easily cut off money money for a state without them without uh you know people in the state even knowing you know but now that we know it's unlikely that they do that because it would lead to mass outrage of course um let's see um let's go back to uh I mentioned earlier uh mandates let's talk about them for another minute mandates uh most of them concern uh civil rights and the environment you know so uh you know um so we're mandating that certain things happen have have to happen you know you can't have black water fountains and white water fountains uh a mandate uh good mandate I guess as an example would be uh desegregation of schools for civil rights an environment uh mandating certain lands to be uh environmentally uh I I I can't think of it but uh for them to become like uh you know to stay un indust Unum humified I guess un uh you know without people all right anyway it doesn't matter I'm drawing a blank here that's not good so anyway so um a big problem with it is that often times they're not funded enough so they might so the Mandate might say that hey this has to happen but they might not give enough money for that to happen so the states have to take money out of their own Pockets or raise taxes or figure something out to make sure it happens because it has been mandated um now how much money do you get you know how much does it seem like they get per uh mandate you know it I guess it kind of depends on the field um this this isn't really as important for uh the AP here but I'll just say it anyway for the environment you get a high amount of money for Education low amount of money which is kind of sad um and for health you know you know like uh for making sure that uh Medicare Medicaid all that stays funded per state that's a medium but I but this number is definitely going up for health especially with Obamacare and uh you know federal health insurance and all of that stuff happening but hey the uh AP hasn't caught up to the time so anyway um so the states also so so the federal government can give money uh through a mandate you know in order for it to happen but they can also take away money from States uh and that can happen via um Federal uh taxing taxing and um laws that expose or that make States liable so there you know there's some laws that say Hey the states have to pay for this and the federal government makes it and then something happens and the states have to pay money that they wouldn't have had to before that decision was made so hey that's not too good well that sucks for the states but hey it works out well for us in the end um so yeah there have been court orders on all these things which go back to mandates you know they've happened School desegregation prison busing hiring practices and even police brutality is a big one also you know hey we don't want that um so something that uh people have noticed you know when I say people I mean like civilians so hey we've noticed that the uh the funding you know through grants y y used for Washington's needs so it's used for um you know National things more so than uh than the uh idea of local grants for local needs all right okay so let's go back up here let's talk about you know this this kind of funny question um are we in a Devolution Revolution you know Devolution is the idea that uh I think I said it earlier so I'm not going to write it again is uh to give money uh not money to give power to the states over the federal government so take away power from the feds give it back back to the States um let's talk about uh there was a there was President uh Reagan let's talk about what he did what his administration did so the Reagan Administration um con it uh he cons or not he his administration consolid dated categorical grants into block RS which made uh States happy because they could use the money more easily okay that makes sense and um but however at the same time less money goes to the States but guess what as a result of the block grants fewer strings attached so they could use the money as they wanted and and also the stat started uh you know this led to States spending more money you know more from their own tax revenue and yada yada yada not as important but still factual and um now let's see what have the Republicans wanted so let's talk more about Republicans uh talk about in the 90s and and this is still mostly true for today um they want they want to roll back Federal programs you know they want um less money being spent by the federal government that's their whole thing Republicans uh you know more conservative um so it kind of raises a question is uh like the big national government on the decline like you know will this be a thing of the past soon and I guess uh you know you we answer this question years from now it's just a question posed in the textbook that I found kind of interesting you know the Republicans want it this way meanwhile the Liberals Democrats want it the other way they're going to keep fighting each other but eventually one of the sides has to prevail more so so is the government going to get even bigger or will it get smaller um but uh you know let me kind of answer this question for you um let me just say that federal spending is up so federal spending is up so I guess they're spending more money um federal debt is at all-time high yeah we're what is it 15 trillion in debt yeah we're we're broke US government could have defaulted by now probably um well the same time uh local spending has also increased and um more government regulation you know more the government saying things need to be like this and you know and they're saying that because they want things to be better for you but hey we I'll leave that up to you um but you know I guess something I'm noticing the textbook is kind of a little bit one-sided on this so let me just point something else out I mean this is this all seems to point towards the idea that it's not in the decline let me also uh let me go against that by saying that um there is there has been a uh decrease a dramatic decrease even in uh welfare roles you know there's less being given to it and then there more and more people on it um you know what this isn't I mean this isn't this isn't even really true anymore I mean this was changed by uh the two the you know late 2000s economic troubles but before that there was a decrease so I guess you know I don't it doesn't seem as though the big government is on the decline that's really the point I'm trying to get at but hey we can revisit this topic later at some point um Congress and federalism are we you know this this is actually my favorite part so I like this part it really um you know so we we do have a central government right but at the same time you know a big part of that's Congress they do represent the local the uh the states right I mean so at the same time time I mean is is the federal since then therefore is the federal government just run by the states it's kind of an open-ended question I mean I I just like that part of the textbook I think it's kind of almost funny and uh at the same time I mean when they're while they're representing them is their party you know their local party as relevant or are they just going to do what the state wants at the time or do they just you know just you know they just do what the state wants and uh you know that's just another way to look at this whole idea you know hey Congress uh Congress is literally just composed of members from each state so isn't that the means of the state governments uh reaching into the federal government or at the same time when you combine them all do the states I do the state do what the states want not really get represented I'll leave you guys on that question this is CSM 10495 chapter 3 federalism see you in the next video bye-bye