n clearly grants such. In this case, there is a very large group of powers belonging to the states, and the federal government is limited to only those powers explicitly listed in the Constitution.The second, cooperative federalism, asserts that the national government is supreme over the states, and the 10th Amendment, the Supremacy Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Commerce Clause have entirely different meaning. A good illustration of the wide interpretation of these parts of the Constitution is exemplified by the Necessary and Proper Clause's other common name: the Elastic Clause.Dual federalism is not completely dead, but for the most part, the United States' branches of government operate under the presumption of a cooperative federalism. The shift from dual to cooperative was a slow one, but it was steady.One of the earliest examples of a shift was in the Supreme Court's Gibbons v. Ogden decision, which ruled in 1824 that Congress's right to regulate commerce under the Commerce Clause could be "exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than those prescribed in the constitution..." The Court did not expand the powers of the national government much over the next century. But in the 1930's, a wave of feeling of social injustice began to sweep the nation as the Depression began. Federal laws concerning labor, civil rights, and civil liberties began to take on a new priority. National laws, and amendments to the Constitution, have taken away many powers from the states, such as the ability to significantly restrict voting rights or the ability to draw political districts at the whim of political party bosses.Some advocate a return to an emphasis on dual federalism as a returning of power to a government closer to the people, and hence under better popular control. There are many problems with this, however, as many states found in the Reagan era. President Reagan was a strong advocate of st...
