The Federalism Revolution of the 1990s

In the 1990s, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist began slowly chipping away at national regulatory power by applying federalism-based limits on congressional authority. In two cases we examine today -- New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997) -- the Court articulated the anti-commandeering doctrine, drawing a bright line that prevents the national government from commandeering the state governments and forcing them into a national regulatory scheme.