David Zaring worries about where Judge Alito stands on the doctrines of federalism, which Zaring regards as dead and happily so. Since the post does not appear to be interested in discussing the textual authorization or obligation for or against sovereign immunity or limited federal government power, I will discuss only the practical.

Having a national culture but decentralized power over some issues are not at all inconsistent. Everybody agrees that some decisions should be made at the local level and some at the national level. The New Haven City Council decides whether to raise the speed limit on Church St. by 5 MPH, but the President and Congress decide whether we go to war with Canada.

The two questions for the house appear to be 1, what decisions should be put at what levels, and 2, whether inferior levels of government should have judicially enforceable rights against the branches above them. Should states be able to resist claims for damages from the federal government or challenge unevenly apportioned taxes? Should states be able to argue that certain areas of life are outside of the bailiwick of the Washington Office? And so on.

Now so far as question 2 goes, I happen to think that the answer is generally "yes". States should have judicially enforceable rights against the superior government, even if it is not clear exactly what rights and how strong they should be. For me this is a rough guess based on anti-tyranny principles. Decentralized power is better than concentrated power because it makes it harder for a single faction to seize all of the levers of power for malevolent (or benevolent) purposes. Hurrah for pluralism.

But of course we can have this sort of decentralized territorial power even with national movies and national car-manufacturers, just as the fact that you can buy a Coca Cola in Paris or Beijing does not change the fact that we are different governments with different powers to use against each other.