The Tenth Amendment’s meaning has been built one Supreme Court decision at a time, and a relatively short list of Tenth Amendment court cases carries most of the weight. Those decisions answer three recurring questions: whether Congress can force state governments to carry out federal programs, how far the commerce power reaches into local affairs, and when financial pressure on states stops being an offer and starts being coercion.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment
The Starting Point: A “Truism” With No Teeth
For most of the twentieth century, the amendment did little independent work. In United States v. Darby (1941), the Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act and called the Tenth Amendment “but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.”2Library of Congress. United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 On that reading, the amendment reminded everyone that federal power had limits without adding any new ones. That posture held until the 1970s and then broke apart in the 1990s, when the Court began treating the amendment as an enforceable check.
The Anti-Commandeering Cases
The most important line of modern Tenth Amendment cases holds that Congress cannot order state legislatures to pass laws or draft state officials into federal service.3Constitution Annotated. Amdt10.4.2 Anti-Commandeering Doctrine Three decisions define the doctrine.
New York v. United States (1992)
The Court struck down a provision of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act that would have forced states to take title to radioactive waste if they missed federal disposal deadlines. Congress, the Court held, cannot simply command a state to regulate an industry on the federal government’s behalf.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992) When it does, state officials absorb voter anger for decisions actually made in Washington, and the accountability that makes federalism valuable disappears.
Printz v. United States (1997)
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act required local law enforcement officers to run background checks on prospective gun buyers until a national system came online. The Court struck that requirement down, holding that the federal government “may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers . . . to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.”5Legal Information Institute. Printz v. United States New York protected state legislatures; Printz extended the same protection to state executive officials.
Murphy v. NCAA (2018)
The most recent extension involved sports betting. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act did not tell states to ban sports gambling; it forbade them from authorizing it. When New Jersey wanted to legalize sports wagering, professional sports leagues sued to enforce the federal ban. The Court ruled the statute unconstitutional and rejected any distinction between commanding a state to act and forbidding a state from acting, calling that distinction “empty.” Either way, state legislatures end up under Congress’s direct control. The majority described the law as functioning “as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals.”6Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 584 U.S. ___ (2018) Dozens of states legalized sports betting in the years that followed.
Where Commandeering Ends: Reno v. Condon
Not every federal rule that touches state government amounts to commandeering. In Reno v. Condon (2000), a unanimous Court upheld the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which restricted how states could share personal information from motor vehicle records. South Carolina argued the law conscripted state officials, but the Court held that the statute regulated states “as the owners of databases” rather than forcing them to enact legislation or enforce federal law against their own citizens.7Legal Information Institute. Reno v. Condon Federal law can regulate what a state does with what it already has. It cannot order the state to build a new regulatory program or put state employees to work enforcing federal policy.
Commerce Clause Limits
The Commerce Clause is Congress’s broadest tool for reaching private conduct, and the Tenth Amendment sits behind it as a backstop. Three cases mark the boundary.
United States v. Lopez (1995)
The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 made it a federal crime to possess a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school. The Court struck the law down because possessing a gun near a school is not commercial activity, and Congress had shown no meaningful connection between the regulated conduct and interstate commerce.8Legal Information Institute. United States v. Lopez Education and local crime are traditional state responsibilities, and this was the first time in nearly sixty years the Court had invalidated a federal law for exceeding the commerce power.
United States v. Morrison (2000)
The Violence Against Women Act let victims of gender-motivated violence sue their attackers in federal court. Congress had compiled substantial evidence linking such violence to the national economy, but the Court held the chain of effects too attenuated. The regulated conduct was noneconomic and violent, and policing violent crime remains within the states’ general police powers.9Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Gonzales v. Raich (2005)
Lopez and Morrison show where the commerce power runs out. Gonzales v. Raich shows where it holds firm even against strong state-sovereignty arguments. California had legalized medical marijuana, and two patients grew cannabis at home strictly for personal use. Federal agents prosecuted them under the Controlled Substances Act, and the Court upheld the prosecution.10Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005) Marijuana production is economic activity, and it fell inside a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme. When the regulated activity is part of a class of economic activities with a substantial effect on interstate commerce, Congress can regulate the whole class without carving out individual exceptions. In practice, Raich is where many Tenth Amendment challenges break down, because most conduct has some economic dimension.
The Spending Power: Incentive Versus Coercion
Congress cannot commandeer states directly, but it can attach conditions to federal money. Two cases mark the outer limits.
South Dakota v. Dole (1987)
Congress had withheld 5% of federal highway funds from states that set their drinking age below 21. The Court upheld the condition and set out the framework that still governs spending conditions: the spending must serve the general welfare, the terms must be clear so states know what they are accepting, the condition must relate to the federal interest in the program being funded, and the condition cannot require states to violate other constitutional provisions. The Court added that financial pressure could in theory grow severe enough to become coercion, but a 5% highway-fund withholding was well short of that line.11Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)
NFIB v. Sebelius (2012)
The coercion limit became enforceable twenty-five years later. The Affordable Care Act required states to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income residents, and states that refused stood to lose not only the new expansion funds but all of their existing Medicaid money.12Legal Information Institute. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius Medicaid accounted for over 20% of the average state’s total budget, and the federal share amounted to more than 10% of most states’ total revenue.13Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012) Threatening to pull that much money was, in the Court’s phrase, “a gun to the head.” The ruling made Medicaid expansion optional, and several states declined. Where exactly the coercion line falls between the 5% in Dole and the near-total exposure in Sebelius is still unsettled.
State Employees and Federal Wage Law
Few Tenth Amendment questions have flipped as sharply as whether Congress can impose federal wage and hour rules on state governments.
In National League of Cities v. Usery (1976), the Court held that the Commerce Clause did not let Congress dictate wages and hours for state employees performing “traditional government functions” like fire protection, policing, and public health.14Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976)
Nine years later the Court reversed itself. In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985), it found the traditional-functions test unworkable, because no principled way exists to separate traditional from non-traditional state activities. States, the Court concluded, are protected from federal overreach primarily through their representation in Congress, not through judicially drawn boundaries around state functions.15Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985) State and local government employees are generally covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act on the same terms as private-sector workers. Garcia remains good law, though the anti-commandeering cases that followed show the Court was not finished imposing enforceable structural limits.
Who Can Raise a Tenth Amendment Claim
The amendment describes the relationship between the federal government and the states, so lower courts long disagreed about whether individuals could invoke it. Bond v. United States (2011) resolved the question. Carol Anne Bond had been prosecuted under a federal chemical weapons statute for conduct that resembled a local assault. The appeals court dismissed her Tenth Amendment argument for lack of standing, and the Supreme Court reversed. An individual, the Court held, has “a direct interest in objecting to laws that upset the constitutional balance between the National Government and the States when the enforcement of those laws causes injury that is concrete, particular, and redressable.”16Legal Information Institute. Bond v. United States You do not have to wait for your state to sue. If a federal statute injures you and you believe Congress lacked the constitutional authority to pass it, you can raise the argument yourself.