# Cooperative Federalism **Cooperative federalism** is the model, dominant since the [[New Deal]], in which federal and state governments share functions rather than dividing them. Its image is the "marble cake," set against the "layer cake" of [[Dual Federalism]]. Its instruments are the conditional grant, the delegated program, and the federal floor. It matters to this vault because the conditional grant is how Washington runs most domestic policy, which makes fights over grant conditions the place where American federalism is now contested. ## Layer cake to marble cake Under dual federalism each level of government had its own sphere, and the Court policed the boundary. Political scientist Morton Grodzins gave the replacement model its image in his 1960 essay for the President's Commission on National Goals: "A far more accurate image is the rainbow or marble cake... As colors are mixed in the marble cake, so functions are mixed in the American federal system." The phrase had appeared earlier, in a 1950s pamphlet by Joseph McLean, but Grodzins made it the standard description. The shift began when the Court stopped policing that boundary after 1937; [[Wickard v. Filburn]] (1942) is the marker. The [[New Deal]] built programs — unemployment insurance and aid to dependent children under the 1935 Social Security Act — that states run with federal money and federal rules. The [[Great Society]] multiplied categorical grants-in-aid, Medicaid (1965) above all. [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Ronald Reagan]] pushed back by consolidating narrow grants into [[Block Grant]]s, and the [[Welfare Reform Act]] of 1996 converted cash welfare into one. ## The machinery The characteristic design: Congress sets minimum standards and offers states a choice between administering the program themselves or ceding it to a federal agency. | Instrument | How it works | Example | |---|---|---| | Categorical grant | Money for a narrow purpose, with matching requirements and strings | [[Medicaid]] | | Block grant | Broad purpose, fewer strings, capped funding | TANF | | State plan / partial preemption | A federal floor that states may enforce instead of the federal agency | [[Clean Air Act]] implementation plans; [[OSHA]] state plans | | Mandate | A requirement imposed without full funding | See [[Unfunded Mandate]] | ## The constitutional limits The system works because the [[Anti-Commandeering Doctrine]] forbids Washington from ordering states to participate, so participation must be **purchased**. The Court has drawn that line three times: [[New York v. United States]] (1992) struck down a provision forcing states to take title to radioactive waste; [[Printz v. United States]] (1997) barred conscripting local sheriffs to run Brady Act background checks; [[Murphy v. NCAA]] (2018) struck down a federal ban on states authorizing sports betting. That makes money the lever and the [[Spending Clause]] the constraint. [[South Dakota v. Dole]] (1987) upheld withholding a share of highway funds from states with a drinking age under 21. It set the tests: conditions must be unambiguous, related to the federal interest, and not coercive. [[NFIB v. Sebelius]] (2012) found the outer limit when the threatened loss was a state's entire existing Medicaid grant — "a gun to the head" — which made the Affordable Care Act's expansion optional. The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 adds only procedure — cost estimates and points of order — and exempts grant conditions altogether. ## The current fight The 2025–26 litigation over conditions attached to grants by executive action tests a different question. The issue is no longer whether Congress may condition its money, but whether the executive may add conditions Congress never enacted — threatened withholding from sanctuary jurisdictions ([[Sanctuary Jurisdiction]]), from universities, and from states resisting executive-order policy. Because the spending power belongs to Congress, that is a separation-of-powers problem layered on the federalism one; the [[Impoundment Control Act]] was written to stop exactly this use of spending as an executive lever. The [[Spending Clause]] page tracks the fight. ## See Also - [[Dual Federalism]] · [[Federalism]] · [[Federalism Powers Crosswalk]] · [[States' Rights]] · [[Tenth Amendment]] - [[Block Grant]] · [[Unfunded Mandate]] · [[Spending Clause]] · [[Anti-Commandeering Doctrine]] - [[South Dakota v. Dole]] · [[NFIB v. Sebelius]] · [[New York v. United States]] · [[Printz v. United States]] · [[Murphy v. NCAA]]