America Needs Federalism Now More Than Ever
MINOT, N.D. — “The U.S. has outgrown federalism,” former Lt. Gov. Lloyd Omdahl tells us.
Federalism was an organizing principle during the founding of our nation, which created a union of sovereign states that gave up a portion of that sovereignty to forge a union under the federal government. The constitutional foundation for federalism is the 10th Amendment, which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Any authority not specifically assigned to the federal government or denied to the states by the Constitution is the domain of the state governments.
Since its founding, our nation has been large and diverse, and we’ve only become more so over the centuries. Federalist principles allow California and North Dakota, Arizona and Maine, to generally pursue policies that work best for those unique parts of our country.
It was and still is a genius innovation implemented by the Founders.
Omdahl believes we’ve had enough of it. “The failure of federalism is well documented by our recent experience with the muddled management of COVID-19 at all levels of government,” he writes.
