How Federalism Protects Individual Rights

At the new Library of Law and Liberty website, George Mason University law professor (and Reason contributor) Ilya Somin looks at the Supreme Court's recent 10th Amendment ruling in Bond v. U.S., which "focuses attention on the ways in which limits on federal government power really do promote individual liberty." He writes:

Bond arose out of a tragic domestic situation. Philadelphia resident Carol Anne Bond discovered that a close friend of hers was pregnant, and that Bond's husband was the father. In an effort to get revenge on this woman, Bond allegedly placed dangerous chemicals in areas the other woman was likely to touch, with the result that the latter got a burn on her hand. Prosecutors charged Bond with violating a federal law that forbids the use of chemicals that can cause death or serious injury to persons or animals, except for a "peaceful purpose." Bond's lawyers contended that this law is unconstitutional because it violates the Tenth Amendment, which holds that "the powers not delegated" to the federal government by "the Constitution" are "reserved to the States… or to the people." Only states, Bond argued, have the authority to regulate criminal behavior of this type.

The federal government claimed that Bond is not allowed to raise this argument because the Tenth Amendment's constraints on the scope of congressional power are intended to protect state governments, not individual citizens. The Supreme Court, as we have seen, decided otherwise because federalism protects individual freedom as well as state sovereignty.

Read the whole thing here. For a look at some of the ways that liberal activists have been using federalism to push a progressive agenda, go here.