AFFIRMATIVE — COUNTERPLAN — STATES/FEDERALISM — ANSWERS 36

THE FEDERALIST IDEOLOGY IS TOO VAGUE

TENTH AMENDMENT IS NOT SPECIFIC ENOUGH AND THE COURTS SEESAW BACK AND FORTH

LINDA GREENHOUSE, The New York Times, November 11, 1999, SECTION: Section A; Page 20; TITLE: States' Rights Adherents on Top Court Appear to Be Given Pause // acs-EE2001

Of the various constitutional battlegrounds on which the federalism wars are being fought, the 10th Amendment poses the sharpest conflict within the court. Its text is opaque, providing only that powers not expressly given to the federal government nor prohibited to the states "are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people." The court has seesawed three times in 25 years over whether the 10th Amendment permits Congress to apply federal wage and hour regulations to state employees. Most recently, in a 1985 decision called Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, the court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that it did.

MEANINGS OF FEDERALISM NOT ALWAYS CLEAR

William Safire The New York Times January 30, 2000, SECTION: Section 6; Page 20;  TITLE: On Language; Federalism // acs-EE2001

Some political scientists today are reverting to the power-sharing meaning. "While Federalists in 1787 advocated creation of a powerful central government," reports Warren Richey in The Christian Science Monitor, "those advocating federalism today are seeking a resurgence of a federal-state balance as mandated in the Constitution."

This linguistic case is ripe for semantic decision; certiorari accepted. Federal (from f<6>dus, "league") is an adjective that has come to mean "characteristic of a national union" and not of "a confederation"; federalize, despite the powers denied the national government and reserved for the states and the people in the 10th Amendment, is a verb meaning "to bring under central control."