I did realize that, but there are ways the federal government could do it. For example, the way they strong-armed[1] all the states to impose a 55 mile per hour speed limit for a period of 2 decades by threatening to cut off highway funding.
There was nothing unconstitutional about that. The States were free to set whatever speed limit they liked if they didn't want federal money to fix their state highways.
Moreover, that mechanism is precisely the mechanism by which the Federal government convinces states to enact federal policies: by dangling federal monies in exchange for the enactment of state laws.
I downvoted this, but now I wonder if I was too hasty. I agree that it might be a disgrace, but I don't know of any legitimate argument that the approach was unconstitutional. Do you have such an argument?
They lacked the explicit constitutional power to enforce the federal will, so they did it in a sneaky, backhanded manner by pulling at the purse strings.
Same BS as making the uniform drinking age of 21 years.
The feds raise taxes in every state to pay for something, then extort those same states to dance to the federal tune in order to get back some of the money taken from their citizens to build roads that would benefit them. If the Feds didn't take that money, the state could have taken it to build their own roads.
It would be great if the federal power could not transfer funds to the states without using apportionment solely by criteria that cannot be gamed politically. Divide-and-conquer is not a tactic that should be countenanced within a federation of supposed equals.
I think Real ID is the latest round of the same way of strong-arming the states, by denying to non-compliant states a benefit that will be enjoyed by compliant states.
From a strictly legal perspective, probably not. But, in general, we shouldn't applaud the federal government effectively forcing the states to implement policies through indirect measures when it isn't allowed to do so directly.
There possibly comes a point when the stick becomes so big and so disconnected from the behavior being forced that an amenable Supreme Court rules it's an end run around the constitution.
