Federalism and Accountability

In recent years, the Supreme Court has resurrected judicially-enforced limits on federal power. In a series of landmark rulings, including, among others, United States v. Lopez, United States v. Morrison,2 and New York v. United States,3 the Court has relied on two fundamental ideas to reduce the power of Congress to regulate the states: that the federal government is a government of limited, enumerated powers, and that the states are the repositories of residual powers. Part of the justification for this constitutional movement is that limits on federal power protect the distribution of power fundamental to our federalist system of government.4 This balance of power, in turn, is linked to a conception of democratic accountability, which suggests that, at least in some instances, federal regulation is less directly accountable to citizens than state regulation.5 In reality, however, the relationship between federal power, state power, and democratic accountability is considerably more