National League of Cities v. Usery 426 U.S. 833 (1976)

• Author: Charles A. Lofgren
• Pages: 1776-1777

Page 1776

This case proved that obituaries for DUAL FEDERALISM were premature. It arose after Congress amended the FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT (FLSA), in 1974, to extend wages-and-hours coverage to nearly all public employees. Several states, cities, and intergovernmental organizations sought to enjoin enforcement of the new provisions. Admitting that the employees in question would come within the federal commerce power if they worked in the private sector, the plaintiffs argued that congressional regulation of employment conditions for state and municipal workers violated "the established constitutional DOCTRINE of INTERGOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY." A three-judge district court disagreed, ruling that under Maryland v. Wirtz (1968), which had upheld the application of wages and hours regulations to public schools and hospitals, an employee's public status was irrelevant to the scope of congressional authority. On APPEAL, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, 5?4, holding that the FLSA amendments could not constitutionally be applied to public employees performing "traditional governmental functions."

Writing for the Court, Justice WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST initially confronted the sweep of the COMMERCE CLAUSE recognized in GIBBONS V. OGDEN (1824). The grant of congressional power was plenary, he conceded, but did not override "affirmative limitations" on Congress. The TENTH AMENDMENT provided the most explicit source for such a limitation, for in Fry v. United States (1975) the Court had offered the dictum that the amendment "expressly declared the constitutional policy that Congress may not exercise power in a fashion that impairs the States' integrity or their ability to function effectively in a federal system." Yet Rehnquist emphasized a less explicit limitation?the overall federal structure. Within it, states perform essential governmental functions, and state decisions about these functions, which include fire protection and law enforcement, must be free from federal interference. Wages and hours legislation constituted a forbidden infringement, because it "operate[s] directly to displace the States' freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.?" Indeed, he expressly held the Court had wrongly decided Wirtz.

But the meaning of National League of Cities as precedent is not clear. Justice HARRY A. BLACKMUN qualified his crucial fifth vote with a concurrence that interpreted the...