Puppy Federalism and the Blessings of America
| Author | Edward L. Rubin |
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271620157400103 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
37
Puppy
Federalism
and
the
Blessings
of
America
By
EDWARD
L.
RUBIN
Edward
L.
Rubin
is
professor
of law
at
the
University
of Pennsylvania
Law
School.
He
taught
at
the
University
of
California,
Berkeley
(Boalt
Hall)
from
1982
until
1998
before
moving
to
Penn.
He
teaches
administrative
law,
commercial
law,
and
law
and
technology
(e-commerce
and
bioethics).
He
is
the
author
of
Judicial
Policy
Making
and
the
Modern
State:
How
the
Courts
Reformed
America’s
Prisons
(1998,
with
M.
Feeley),
The
Payment
System:
Cases,
Materials
and
Issues
(2d
ed.,
1994,
with
R.
Cooter),
and
numerous
law
review
articles,
as
well
as
the
editor
of
Minimizing
Harm:
A
New
Crime
Policy
for
Modern
America
(1998).
ABSTRACT:
Federalism
is
a
system
of
governmental
organization
that
grants
subunits
of
a
polity
definitive
rights
against
the
central
government.
It
allows
these
subunits
to
maintain
different
norms,
or
policies,
from
those
of the
central
government.
Thus
it
differs
from
de-
centralization,
which
is
a
strategy
that
the
central
government
adopts
in
order
to
carry
out
its
norms
or
policies
more
effectively.
Fed-
eralism
is
a
useful
approach
when
people
in
a
given
area
have
such
basic
disagreements
that
they
will
not
agree
to
live
together
in
a
sin-
gle
polity
and
be
bound
by
its
decisions.
The
United
States
is
blessed
with
a
sense
of
national
unity
that
makes
federalism
unnecessary.
This
was
not
the
case
prior
to
the
Civil
War,
however,
and
our
contin-
ued
nostalgia
for
that
period
induces
us
to
adopt
puppy
federalism,
which
looks
like
the
real
thing
but
isn’t.
Legal
scholars
should
not
al-
low
themselves
to
be
fooled;
however,
as
current
legislation
by
the
Re-
publican
Congress
indicates,
real
federalism
garners
no
support
in
our
political
system.
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