# Anti-Commandeering Doctrine The rule that the federal government may not compel a state or its officers to enact, administer, or enforce a federal regulatory program. Grounded in the [[Tenth Amendment]] and in the structure of dual sovereignty. Three cases build it. [[New York v. United States]] (1992) struck a statute forcing states to take title to radioactive waste or regulate under federal direction — Congress may not commandeer a state **legislature**. [[Printz v. United States]] (1997) struck the Brady Act's requirement that local sheriffs run background checks — nor may it commandeer state **executive officers**. [[Murphy v. NCAA]] (2018) extended the rule to laws that forbid a state from *repealing* its own law, striking the federal sports-betting ban. The doctrine cuts both ways politically, which is what makes it structurally interesting: it protects marijuana legalization and [[Sanctuary Jurisdiction]] policies for the same reason it protected gun-show sellers and anti-regulatory states in the 1990s. It bars **conscription** of state machinery, not **preemption** of state law and not conditions on federal money. ## The 2025–26 test The second term has run into the doctrine from the direction the 1990s cases did not anticipate. The administration's campaign against [[Sanctuary Jurisdiction]]s — the January 2025 executive orders, the Justice Department's suits against Illinois, New York, Los Angeles and others, the threats to withhold federal grants — collides with *Printz* at every point where it seeks to make state and local police *do* immigration enforcement rather than merely refrain from obstructing it. The courts have largely held the line: a state may not be conscripted, and grant conditions Congress did not write cannot be imposed by the executive (the spending-power limit from *NFIB v. Sebelius*). The administration's answers have been to route around the states — federal agents, the National Guard under federal orders, the 287(g) agreements with willing sheriffs — which is the doctrine working as designed. The doctrine that protected Arizona's sheriffs from the Brady Act now protects Chicago's police from ICE, and neither side of the argument has been consistent about liking it. See [[Federal Preemption]] for the power the federal government *does* have and [[Executive Order 14160]] for where the two collide. ## See also - [[Printz v. United States]] · [[New York v. United States]] · [[Murphy v. NCAA]] - [[Federal Preemption]] · [[Federalism Powers Crosswalk]]