State’s rights – Powers expressly or implicitly reserved to the states.
Block grants – These are broad state grants to states for prescribed activities—welfare, child
care, education, social services, preventive health care, and health services—with only a few
strings attached. States have greater flexibility in deciding how to spend block grant dollars, but
when the federal funds for any fiscal year are gone, there are no more matching federal dollars.
Direct orders – A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Direct orders must be
complied with under threat of criminal or civil sanction. An example is the Equal Employment
Opportunity Act of 1972, barring job discrimination by state and local governments on the basis
of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
Cross-cutting requirements – A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Federal
grants may establish certain conditions that extend to all activities supported by federal funds,
regardless of their source. The first and most famous of these is Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, which holds that in the use of federal funds, no person may be discriminated against on the
basis of race, color, or national origin. More than 60 cross-cutting requirements concern such
matters as the environment, historic preservation, contract wage rates, access to government
information, the care of experimental animals, and the treatment of human subjects in research
projects.
Crossover sanctions – A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. These sanctions
permit the use of federal money in one program to influence state and local policy in another. For
example, a 1984 act reduced federal highway aid by up to 15 percent for any state that failed to
adopt a minimum drinking age of 21.
Total and Partial Preemption - A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Total
preemption rests on the national governments power under the supremacy and commerce clauses
to preempt conflicting state and local activity. Building on this constitutional authority, federal
law in certain areas entirely preempts state and local governments from the field. Sometimes
federal law provides for partial preemption in establishing basic policies but requires states to
administer them. Some programs give states an option not to participate, but if a state chooses
not to do so, the national government steps in and runs the program. Even worse from the state’s
point of view is mandatory partial preemption, in which the national government requires states
to act on peril of losing other funds but provides no funds to support state action.
Creative federalism – During the Great Society, the marble cake approach of intergovernmental
relations.
Fiscal federalism – Through different grant programs, slices up the marble cake into many
different pieces, making it even more difficult to differentiate the functions of the levels of
government.