Comment by rocqua
7 years ago
> federal laws ... use funding carrots rather than criminal-punishment sticks
There are limits to this, some of which are set out in South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987). These limits (quoting wikipedia) are:
* The spending must promote "the general welfare."
* The condition must be unambiguous.
* The condition should relate "to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs."
* The condition imposed on the states must not, in itself, be unconstitutional.
* The condition must not be coercive.
Especially the last condition is relevant. It means the withdrawal of funding cannot be so harsh as to be clearly funding. I believe the actual wording used is that the threat of withdrawal cannot be a 'gun to the head' of the states.
Do you have a background in law?
Reading through this comment thread is very interesting, I just can't help but try to understand how so many geeks are so well versed in case law :)
Not in the slightest, I recall hearing about this on the "What can trump teach us about con-law" (constitutional law).
I don't even live in america, but the system is interesting and rather well represented in the media. Few countries are as attached to their constitution as the US.
The law is just a programming language for government, thus a lot of programmers are attracted to it.
Especially since we see the government in need of debugging, but we don't see the cause of the bugs in the source code...