Hal is correct that we used to allow the concept of federalism to work. My point is that we ought to go back to it. To give just one example, all the states must abide by the National Labor Relations Act, which is a hideous, authoritiarian statute dating back to 1935, specifically designed to confer unique legal privileges on those who run labor unions. Had the Supreme Court not caved into political pressure from FDR, it would have ruled the statute unconstitutional as beyond the authority of Congress. Had it done so, some states might have enacted pro-union statutes (and perhaps even more draconian than the NLRA) while others would have stayed with the common law rules that treated labor relations as no different from any other contract. Precisely because they did not want state to state competition in law, “liberals” demanded that the entire nation be subjected to the same statute.
Just as Iceland is better off out of the control of the European Union, the states of the US would be better off if they could behave autonomously, out of the control of Washington.
