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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
The federal design of our Constitution has had a profound effect on U.S. politics. Several positive and negative attributes of federalism have manifested themselves in the U.S. political system.
Among the merits of federalism are that it promotes policy innovation and political participation and accommodates diversity of opinion. On the subject of policy innovation, Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis observed in 1932 that “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann , 285 U.S. 262 (1932). What Brandeis meant was that states could harness their constitutional authority to engage in policy innovations that might eventually be diffused to other states and at the national level. For example, a number of New Deal breakthroughs, such as child labor laws, were inspired by state policies. Prior to the passage of the
Nineteenth Amendment , several states had already granted women the right to vote. California has led the way in establishing standards for fuel emissions and other environmental policies (
[link] ). Recently, the health insurance exchanges run by Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Washington have served as models for other states seeking to improve the performance of their exchanges.
Christine Vestal and Michael Ollove, “Why some state-run health exchanges worked,”
USA Today , 10 December 2013.
Another advantage of federalism is that because our federal system creates two levels of government with the capacity to take action, failure to attain a desired policy goal at one level can be offset by successfully securing the support of elected representatives at another level. Thus, individuals, groups, and social movements are encouraged to actively participate and help shape public policy.
Thinking of running for elected office? Well, you have several options. As [link] shows, there are a total of 510,682 elected offices at the federal, state, and local levels. Elected representatives in municipal and township governments account for a little more than half the total number of elected officials in the United States. Political careers rarely start at the national level. In fact, a very small share of politicians at the subnational level transition to the national stage as representatives, senators, vice presidents, or presidents.
| Elected Officials at the Federal, State, and Local Levels | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number of Elective Bodies | Number of Elected Officials | |
| Federal Government | 1 | |
| Executive branch | 2 | |
| U.S. Senate | 100 | |
| U.S. House of Representatives | 435 | |
| State Government | 50 | |
| State legislatures | 7,382 | |
| Statewide offices | 1,036 | |
| State boards | 1,331 | |
| Local Government | ||
| County governments | 3,034 | 58,818 |
| Municipal governments | 19,429 | 135,531 |
| Town governments | 16,504 | 126,958 |
| School districts | 13,506 | 95,000 |
| Special districts | 35,052 | 84,089 |
| Total | 87,576 | 510,682 |
If you are interested in serving the public as an elected official, there are more opportunities to do so at the local and state levels than at the national level. As an added incentive for setting your sights at the subnational stage, consider the following. Whereas only 28 percent of U.S. adults trusted Congress in 2014, about 62 percent trusted their state governments and 72 percent had confidence in their local governments.
Justin McCarthy. 2014. “Americans Still Trust Local Government More Than State,” September 22. http://www.gallup.com/poll/176846/americans-trust-local-government-state.aspx (June 24, 2015).
If you ran for public office, what problems would you most want to solve? What level of government would best enable you to solve them, and why?
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