Federalism in Manhattan: What Does It Mean?

It is unlikely that James Madison, when he was writing the Federalist Papers for publication in New York in 1788, contemplated the need for congestion pricing in lower Manhattan, which at the time had a population of around 30,000 and extended only as far north as present day Broome street.

But a President who would declare himself King? That was right in Madison’s wheelhouse.

The entire point of his new Constitution was to form a more perfect union with enough authority to function effectively but not too much authority concentrated in the hands of any one person or faction. He and other founders specifically resisted the call for the restoration of a monarch!

His complex design for the new government was full of checks, balances and separated powers. Now, suddenly, lower Manhattan is at the heart of a new struggle over what Madison considered to be one of the central safeguards in the Constitution to protect citizens from tyrannical government.

The topic permeates the question of who should decide whether to tax motorists below 60th street, but it also was a dynamic at the Federal Court House in lower Manhattan as a judge pondered The Trump adminstration’s request to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Adams.

That constitutional protection is called Federalism, a word most everyone knows and few really get.

Many people understand that “separation of powers” was at the heart of Madison’s design for the Constitution. A President, a Congress (in two houses) and a Supreme Court would provide checks and balances on each other.

But in explaining this, in Federalist 51, Madison put nearly equal weight on an additional safeguard, what he called “the compound Republic.” Not only would power be divided within the new Federal Government. To further guard against abuse, “the power surrendered by the people, is first divided between two distinct governments,” national and state.

Or as the tenth amendment put it, to underline the point, powers not enumerated to the Federal government, “are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Which brings us to congestion pricing.

Constitutional process doesn’t usually make for great sound bites. But President Trump gave Governor Hochul a big opening when he announced his administration was killing congestion pricing and concluded his post, “Long Live the King.”

“I’m here to say, New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now,” Hochul responded. “The streets of this city, where battles were fought; we stood up to a king. And we won then. And in case you don’t know New Yorkers, when we’re in a fight, we do not back down.”

The issue is more likely to be resolved in the courts, rather than the streets.

Speaking of courts, Mayor Adams was back in Federal Court supporting The Trump administration’s motion to dismiss corruption charges against him. This is a Federal case, so not directly an issue of Federalism and states’ rights.

But at the heart of the controversy is New York’s effort to assert its sovereignty to protect immigrants here that the Trump administration wants to deport. Trump can’t directly reach in and override so called “Sanctuary City” legislation.

But the next best thing is to win, or force, the cooperation of the Mayor.

New York’s generally Democratic political elites were patient when the mayor was charged with bribery and other offenses. But many rose up when Adams agreed with the Trump plan to withdraw the charges, at least for now, so the Mayor would be free to help the new administration fight illegal immigration.

The Republican prosecutor who brought the charges, Danielle Sassoon, said this was a “quid pro quo” in which the Trump Justice Department was improperly abusing prosecutorial discretion to pin down Adams’ shifting positions on immigration.

In other words, a work around the 10th Amendment, which makes New York, and every other state, sovereign within its borders with the power to resist acts of the federal government. This idea has had a bad name with many progressives since much of the early history of the country revolved around Southern states insisting on their sovereign right to enslave people.

That was ultimately settled by the Civil War, which increased the power of the central government, but did not end the struggle Madison envisioned between states and Washington.

A new chapter began this week in Manhattan.