One PAGE each prompt 500 words each prompt 1. PROMP: Explain the limits on federal control of state government that you have learned from South Dakota v. Dole, NFIB v. Sebelius, and New York v. United States. 2. PROMPWhat do NFIB v. Sebelius and Printz v. United States add to our understanding of the “Proper” requirement of the Necessary & Proper Clause?quotes has to be directly from the documents that I sent you and text book with page number and highlight each quote. 2 quotes from the book and 3 quotes from the actual CASE or document.Page 1 of 7
S.D. v. Dole
S.D. v. Dole
Supreme Court of the United States
April 28, 1987, Argued ; June 23, 1987, Decided
No. 86-260
Reporter
483 U.S. 203 *; 107 S. Ct. 2793 **; 97 L. Ed. 2d 171 ***; 1987 U.S. LEXIS 2871 ****; 55 U.S.L.W. 4971
SOUTH DAKOTA v. DOLE, SECRETARY OF
TRANSPORTATION
Judges: Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the
Court, in which White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell,
Stevens, and Scalia, JJ., joined. Brennan, J., post, p.
212, and O’Connor, J., post, p. 212, filed dissenting
opinions.
Opinion by: REHNQUIST
Opinion
[*205] [***176] [**2795]
CHIEF
JUSTICE
REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
LEdHN[1A][ ] [1A] LEdHN[2A][ ] [2A]Petitioner
South Dakota permits persons 19 years of age or older
to purchase beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol. S. D.
Codified Laws § 35-6-27 (1986). In 1984 Congress
[***177] enacted 23 U. S. C. § 158 (1982 ed., Supp.
III), which directs the Secretary of Transportation to
withhold a percentage of federal highway funds
otherwise allocable from States “in which the purchase
or public possession . . . of any alcoholic beverage by a
person who is less than twenty-one years of age is
lawful.” The State sued in United States District Court
seeking a declaratory judgment that § 158 violates the
constitutional limitations on congressional exercise of
the spending power and violates the Twenty-first
Amendment to the United States Constitution. The
District Court rejected the State’s claims, and the Court
of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 791 F.2d 628
(1986).
[****5] In this Court, the parties direct most of their
efforts to defining the proper scope of the Twenty-first
Amendment. Relying on our statement in California
Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc.,
445 U.S. 97, 110 (1980), that the “Twenty-first
Amendment grants the States virtually complete control
over whether to permit importation or sale of liquor and
how to structure the liquor distribution system,” South
Dakota asserts that the setting of minimum drinking
ages is clearly within the “core powers” reserved to the
States under § 2 of the Amendment. 1 Brief for
Petitioner 43-44. Section 158, petitioner claims, usurps
[*206] that core power. The Secretary in response
asserts that the Twenty-first Amendment is simply not
implicated by § 158; the plain language of § 2 confirms
the States’ broad power to impose restrictions on the
sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages but does not
confer on them any power to permit sales that Congress
seeks to prohibit. Brief for Respondent 25-26. That
Amendment, under this reasoning, would not prevent
Congress from affirmatively enacting a national
minimum drinking age more restrictive than [****6] that
provided by the various state laws; and it would follow a
fortiori that the indirect inducement involved here is
compatible with the Twenty-first Amendment.
LEdHN[1B][ ] [1B]LEdHN[3][ ] [3]These arguments
present questions of the meaning of the Twenty-first
Amendment, the bounds of which have escaped precise
definition. Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U.S. 263,
274-276 (1984); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 206
(1976). Despite the extended treatment of the question
by the parties, however, we need not decide in this case
whether that Amendment would prohibit an attempt by
Congress to legislate directly a national minimum
drinking age. Here, Congress has acted indirectly under
its spending power to encourage uniformity in the
1 Section
2 of the Twenty-first Amendment provides: “The
transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or
possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of
intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby
prohibited.”
Page 2 of 7
S.D. v. Dole
States’ [****7] drinking ages. As we explain below, we
find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds
even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages
directly.
LEdHN[4][ ] [4]HN1[ ] The Constitution empowers
Congress to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts,
and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the
common Defence and general Welfare of [***178] the
United States.” Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. Incident to this power,
Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of
[**2796] federal funds, and has repeatedly employed
the power “to further broad policy objectives by
conditioning receipt of federal moneys upon compliance
by the recipient with federal statutory and administrative
directives.” Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 474
(1980) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). See Lau v. Nichols,
414 U.S. 563, 569 (1974); Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v.
McCracken, 357 U.S. 275, 295 (1958); Oklahoma
[*207] v. Civil Service Comm’n, 330 U.S. 127, 143-144
(1947); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548
(1937). The breadth of this power was made clear in
United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936), [****8]
where the Court, resolving a longstanding debate over
the scope of the Spending Clause, determined that “the
power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public
moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct
grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.”
Thus, objectives not thought to be within Article I’s
“enumerated legislative fields,” id., at 65, may
nevertheless be attained through the use of the
spending power and the conditional grant of federal
funds.
LEdHN[5][ ]
[5]LEdHN[6][ ]
[6]HN2[ ]
The
spending power is of course not unlimited, Pennhurst
State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17,
and n. 13 (1981), but is instead subject to several
general restrictions articulated in our cases. The first of
these limitations is derived from the language of the
Constitution itself: the exercise of the spending power
must be in pursuit of “the general welfare.” See
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 640-641 (1937);
United States v. Butler, supra, at 65. In considering
whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve
general public purposes, courts should defer
substantially to the judgment of [****9] Congress.
Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 640, 645. 2 Second, we
2 The
level of deference to the congressional decision is such
have required that if Congress desires to condition the
States’ receipt of federal funds, it “must do so
unambiguously . . . , enabl[ing] the States to exercise
their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences
of their participation.” Pennhurst State School and
Hospital v. Halderman, supra, at 17. Third, our cases
have suggested (without significant elaboration) that
conditions on federal grants might be illegitimate if they
are unrelated “to the federal interest in particular
national projects or programs.” Massachusetts v. United
States, 435 U.S. 444, 461 [*208] (1978) (plurality
opinion).
See also Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v.
McCracken, supra, at 295, (“The Federal Government
may establish and impose reasonable conditions
relevant to federal interest in the [***179] project and to
the over-all objectives thereof”). Finally, we have noted
that other constitutional provisions may provide an
independent bar to the conditional grant of federal
funds. Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood School
Dist., 469 U.S. 256, 269-270 (1985); [****10] Buckley
v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 91 (1976) (per curiam); King v.
Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 333, n. 34 (1968).
LEdHN[1C][ ] [1C]LEdHN[7A][ ] [7A]South Dakota
does not seriously claim that § 158 is inconsistent with
any of the first three restrictions mentioned above. We
can readily conclude that the provision is designed to
serve the general welfare, especially in light of the fact
that “the concept of welfare or the opposite is shaped by
Congress . . . .” Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 645.
Congress found that the differing drinking [**2797]
ages in the States created particular incentives for
young persons to combine their desire to drink with their
ability to drive, and that this interstate problem required
a national [****11] solution. The means it chose to
address this dangerous situation were reasonably
calculated to advance the general welfare. The
conditions upon which States receive the funds,
moreover, could not be more clearly stated by
Congress. See 23 U. S. C. § 158 (1982 ed., Supp. III).
And the State itself, rather than challenging the
germaneness of the condition to federal purposes,
admits that it “has never contended that the
congressional action was . . . unrelated to a national
concern in the absence of the Twenty-first Amendment.”
Brief for Petitioner 52. Indeed, the condition imposed by
that the Court has more recently questioned whether “general
welfare” is a judicially enforceable restriction at all. See
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 90-91 (1976) (per curiam).
Page 3 of 7
S.D. v. Dole
Congress is directly related to one of the main purposes
for which highway funds are expended — safe interstate
travel. See 23 U. S. C. § 101(b). 3 [*209] This goal of
the interstate highway system had been frustrated by
varying drinking ages among the States. A Presidential
commission appointed to study alcohol-related
accidents and fatalities on the Nation’s highways
concluded that the lack of uniformity in the States’
drinking ages created “an incentive to drink and drive”
because “young persons commut[e] to border States
where the drinking age is lower.” Presidential
Commission on Drunk [****12] Driving, Final Report 11
(1983). By enacting § 158, Congress conditioned the
receipt of federal funds in a way reasonably calculated
to address this particular impediment to a purpose for
which the funds are expended.
LEdHN[7B][
] [7B]
LEdHN[2B][ ] [2B]The remaining question [****13]
about the validity of § 158 — and the basic point of
disagreement between the parties — is whether the
Twenty-first Amendment constitutes an “independent
constitutional bar” to the conditional grant of federal
funds. Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood [***180]
School Dist., supra, at 269-270.Petitioner, relying on its
view that the Twenty-first Amendment prohibits direct
regulation of drinking ages by Congress, asserts that
“Congress may not use the spending power to regulate
that which it is prohibited from regulating directly under
the Twenty-first Amendment.” Brief for Petitioner 52-53.
But our cases show that this “independent constitutional
bar” limitation on the spending power is not of the kind
petitioner suggests. United States v. Butler, supra, at
66, for example, established that HN3[ ] the
3 Our
cases have not required that we define the outer bounds
of the “germaneness” or “relatedness” limitation on the
imposition of conditions under the spending power. Amici
urge that we take this occasion to establish that a condition on
federal funds is legitimate only if it relates directly to the
purpose of the expenditure to which it is attached. See Brief
for National Conference of State Legislatures et al. as Amici
Curiae 10. Because petitioner has not sought such a
restriction, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-21, and because we find
any such limitation on conditional federal grants satisfied in
this case in any event, we do not address whether conditions
less directly related to the particular purpose of the
expenditure might be outside the bounds of the spending
power.
constitutional limitations on Congress when exercising
its spending power are less exacting than those on its
authority to regulate directly.
[*210] We have also held that a perceived Tenth
Amendment limitation on congressional regulation of
state affairs did not comitantly limit the range of
conditions legitimately placed on federal [****14] grants.
In Oklahoma v. Civil Service Comm’n, 330 U.S. 127
(1947), the Court considered the validity of the Hatch
Act insofar as it was applied to political activities of state
officials whose employment was financed in whole or in
part with federal funds. The State contended that an
order under this provision to withhold certain federal
funds unless a state official was removed invaded its
sovereignty in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
Though finding that “the United States is not concerned
with, and has no power to regulate, local political
activities as such of state officials,” the Court
nevertheless held that the Federal Government “does
have power to fix the terms upon [**2798] which its
money allotments to states shall be disbursed.” Id., at
143. The Court found no violation of the State’s
sovereignty because the State could, and did, adopt
“the ‘simple expedient’ of not yielding to what she urges
is federal coercion. The offer of benefits to a state by the
United States dependent upon cooperation by the state
with federal plans, assumedly for the general welfare, is
not unusual.” Id., at 143-144 (citation [****15] omitted).
See also Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S., at
595 (“There is only a condition which the state is free at
pleasure to disregard or to fulfill”); Massachusetts v.
Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 482 (1923).
LEdHN[2C][ ] [2C]LEdHN[8][ ] [8]These cases
establish that HN4[ ] the “independent constitutional
bar” limitation on the spending power is not, as
petitioner suggests, a prohibition on the indirect
achievement of objectives which Congress is not
empowered to achieve directly. Instead, we think that
the language in our earlier opinions stands for the
unexceptionable proposition that the power may not be
used to induce the States to engage in activities that
would themselves be unconstitutional.
Thus, for
example, a grant of federal funds conditioned on
invidiously discriminatory state action or the infliction of
cruel and unusual punishment would be an illegitimate
exercise of the Congress’ [*211] broad spending
power. But no such claim can be or is made here.
Were South Dakota to succumb to the blandishments
offered by Congress and raise its drinking age to 21, the
State’s action in so doing would not violate the
Page 4 of 7
S.D. v. Dole
constitutional rights of anyone.
[***181] [****16] LEdHN[2D][ ] [2D]Our decisions
have recognized that in some circumstances the
financial inducement offered by Congress might be so
coercive as to pass the point at which “pressure turns
into compulsion.” Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, supra,
at 590. Here, however, Congress has directed only that
a State desiring to establish a minimum drinking age
lower than 21 lose a relatively small percentage of
certain federal highway funds. Petitioner contends that
the coercive nature of this program is evident from the
degree of success it has achieved.
We cannot
conclude, however, that a conditional grant of federal
money of this sort is unconstitutional simply by reason
of its success in achieving the congressional objective.
When we consider, for a moment, that all South Dakota
would lose if she adheres to her chosen course as to a
suitable minimum drinking age is 5% of the funds
otherwise obtainable under specified highway grant
programs, the argument as to coercion is shown to be
more rhetoric than fact. As we said a half century ago in
Steward Machine Co. v. Davis:
“Every rebate from a tax when conditioned upon
conduct is in some measure a temptation. But to hold
[****17] that motive or temptation is equivalent to
coercion is to plunge the law in endless difficulties. The
outcome of such a doctrine is the acceptance of a
philosophical determinism by which choice becomes
impossible. Till now the law has been guided by a
robust common sense which assumes the freedom of
the will as a working hypothesis in the solution of its
problems.” 301 U.S., at 589-590.
LEdHN[1D][ ] [1D]LEdHN[2E][ ] [2E]Here Congress
has offered relatively mild encouragement to the States
to enact higher minimum drinking ages than they would
otherwise choose. But the enactment of such laws
remains the prerogative of the States not merely in
theory [*212] but in fact. HN5[ ] Even if Congress
might lack the power to impose a national minimum
drinking age directly, we conclude that encouragement
to state action found in § 158 is a valid use of the
spending power. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court
of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Dissent by: BRENNAN; O’CONNOR
Dissent
JUSTICE BRENNAN, dissenting.
I agree with JUSTICE O’CONNOR that regulation of the
minimum age of purchasers of liquor falls squarely
within the ambit [**2799] of those powers reserved to
the States by the Twenty-first Amendment. See post, at
218. Since [****18] States possess this constitutional
power, Congress cannot condition a federal grant in a
manner that abridges this right. The Amendment, itself,
strikes the proper balance between federal and state
authority. I therefore dissent.
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, dissenting.
The Court today upholds the National Minimum Drinking
Age Amendment, 23 U. S. C. § 158 (1982 ed., Supp.
III), as a valid exercise of the spending power conferred
by Article I, § 8. But § 158 is not a condition on
spending reasonably related to the expenditure of
federal funds and cannot be justified [***182] on that
ground. Rather, it is an attempt to regulate the sale of
liquor, an attempt that lies outside Congress’ power to
regulate commerce because it falls within the ambit of §
2 of the Twenty-first Amendment.
My disagreement with the Court is relatively narrow on
the spending power issue: it is a disagreement about
the application of a principle rather than a disagreement
on the principle itself. I agree with the Court that
Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of
federal funds to further “the federal interest in particular
national projects or programs.” Massachusetts v. United
States, 435 U.S. 444, 461 (1978); [****19] see
Oklahoma v. Civil Service Comm’n, 330 U.S. 127, 143144 (1947); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S.
548 (1937). I also subscribe to the established
proposition [*213] that the reach of the spending power
“is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power
found in the Constitution.” United States v. Butler, 297
U.S. 1, 66 (1936). Finally, I agree that there are four
separate types of limitations on the spending power: the
expenditure must be for the general welfare, Helvering
v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 640-641 (1937), the conditions
imposed must be unambiguous, Pennhurst State School
and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17 (1981), they
must be reasonably related to the purpose of the
Page 5 of 7
S.D. v. Dole
expenditure, Massachusetts v. United States, supra, at
461, and the legislation may not violate any independent
constitutional prohibition, Lawrence County v. LeadDeadwood School Dist., 469 U.S. 256, 269-270 (1985).
Ante, at 207-208. Insofar as two of those limitations are
concerned, the Court is clearly correct [****20] that §
158 is wholly unobjectionable. Establishment of a
national minimum drinking age certainly fits within the
broad concept of the general welfare and the statute is
entirely unambiguous. I am also willing to assume,
arguendo, that the Twenty-first Amendment does not
constitute an “independent constitutional bar” to a
spending condition. See ante, at 209-211.
But the Court’s application of the requirement that the
condition imposed be reasonably related to the purpose
for which the funds are expended is cursory and
unconvincing. We have repeatedly said that Congress
may condition grants under the spending power only in
ways reasonably related to the purpose of the federal
program. Massachusetts v. United States, supra, at
461; Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v. McCracken, 357 U.S.
275, 295 (1958) (the United States may impose
“reasonable conditions relevant to federal interest in the
project and to the over-all objectives thereof”); Steward
Machine Co. v. Davis, supra, at 590 (“We do not say
that a tax is valid, when imposed by act of Congress, if it
is laid upon the condition that a state may
escape [****21] its operation through the adoption of a
statute unrelated in subject matter to activities fairly
within the scope of national policy and power”). In my
view, establishment [***183] of a minimum drinking
[*214] age of 21 is not sufficiently …
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