Inside the Federalism Cases: Concern About the Federal Courts

of federalism and the federal courts. ABSTRACT: This article considers some of the Supreme Court’s re-cent efforts at preserving the role of state and local government de-spite vigorous congressional attempts at regulating in areas that had traditionally been left to local policymaking. Focusing on the com-merce clause cases and cases interpreting Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, this article ties federalism interests to the Supreme Court’s concerns about the function of the federal courts: the statutes that prompted the Court’s new vigor in limiting congressional power imposed on the workload of the federal courts and on what the Court sees as the judiciary’s exclusive role of constitutional interpretation. at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 11, 2016ann.sagepub.comDownloaded from 133 T HE efforts of the conservative-L side of the Supreme Court to en-force federalism as a matter of consti-tutional law have drawn a good deal of criticism. Many observers had come to feel secure in the belief that it was well settled that Congress alone would decide which matters should be resolved at the national level and which would be left to the states. Thus Court watchers were surprised, even shocked, when, in 1995, United States u Lopez struck down the fed-eral Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA). ’ Further consternation en