Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority 469 U.S. 528 (1985)

• Author: Kenneth L. Karst
• Pages: 1181-1182

Page 1181

In NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES V. USERY (1976) a 5?4 majority of the Supreme Court sought to establish a new doctrinal foundation for the concept of STATES ' RIGHTS. Overruling its eight-year-old PRECEDENT in Maryland v. Wirtz (1968), the Court held unconstitutional the application of the wage and hour provisions of the federal FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT to state and local government employees in areas of "traditional governmental functions" such as police and fire protection. After eight more years, Garcia followed Wirtz and overruled Usery?again by 5?4 vote. Justice HARRY A. BLACKMUN, whose change of vote produced this second about-face, wrote the OPINION OF THE COURT.

Lower court decisions following Usery, said Justice Blackmun, had failed to establish any principle for determining which governmental functions were "traditional" and essential to state sovereignty, and thus immune from impairment by congressional regulations. Justice Blackmun did not mention his own contribution to the confusion, first in his Usery concurrence, which suggested that the reach of Congress's power depended on the importance of the national interests at stake, and later in his votes to uphold congressional power in cases only doubtfully distinguishable from Usery, such as Federal Regulatory Commission v. Mississippi (1982) and EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION V. WYOMING (1983). The reasoning in those opinions?heatedly disputed by the four Garcia dissenters?had sapped Usery 's strength as a precedent by making the states pass through a doctrinal labyrinth before Usery could be applied.

The aspect of the Garcia opinion that drew the most fire, from within the Court and from the outside, was its announcement of the Court's virtual abdication from JUDICIAL REVIEW of acts of Congress challenged as invasions of state SOVEREIGNTY. The principal remedy for such potential abuses of congressional power, said Justice Blackmun, is not judicial but political. The constitutional structure assures the states a significant role in the selection of the national government; the influence of the states was demonstrated in the federal government's financial aid to the states and in the numerous exemptions for state activities provided in congressional regulations. The Court's abdication was not complete; Justice Blackmun acknowledged that some "affirmative limits ? on federal action affecting the States" may remain. Yet he explicitly left to...