For example, Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizes the federal government to withhold federal grants as well as file lawsuits against state and local officials for practicing racial discrimination. Finally, some mandates come in the form of partial preemption regulations, whereby the federal government sets national regulatory standards but delegates the enforcement to state and local governments. For example, the
Clean Air Act sets air quality regulations but instructs states to design implementation plans to achieve such standards (
[link] ).
The widespread use of federal mandates in the 1970s and 1980s provoked a backlash among state and local authorities, which culminated in the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) in 1995. The UMRA’s main objective has been to restrain the national government’s use of mandates by subjecting rules that impose unfunded requirements on state and local governments to greater procedural scrutiny. However, since the act’s implementation, states and local authorities have obtained limited relief. A new piece of legislation aims to take this approach further. The 2015
Unfunded Mandates and Information Transparency Act , HR 50, passed the House early in 2015 before being referred to the Senate, where it waits committee consideration.
The number of mandates has continued to rise, and some have been especially costly to states and local authorities. Consider the
Real ID Act of 2005, a federal law designed to beef up homeland security. The law requires driver’s licenses and state-issued identification cards (DL/IDs) to contain standardized anti-fraud security features, specific data, and machine-readable technology. It also requires states to verify the identity of everyone being reissued DL/IDs. The Department of Homeland Security announced a phased enforcement of the law in 2013, which requires individuals to present compliant DL/IDs to board commercial airlines starting in 2016. The cost to states of re-issuing DL/IDs, implementing new identity verification procedures, and redesigning DL/IDs is estimated to be $11 billion, and the federal government stands to reimburse only a small fraction.
The continued use of unfunded mandates clearly contradicts new federalism’s call for giving states and local governments more flexibility in carrying out national goals. The temptation to use them appears to be difficult for the federal government to resist, however, as the UMRA’s poor track record illustrates. This is because mandates allow the federal government to fulfill its national priorities while passing most of the cost to the states, an especially attractive strategy for national lawmakers trying to cut federal spending.
The clery act
The Clery Act of 1990, formally the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, requires public and private colleges and universities that participate in federal student aid programs to disclose information about campus crime. The Act is named after Jeanne Clery , who in 1986 was raped and murdered by a fellow student in her Lehigh University dorm room.
The U.S. Department of Education ’s Clery Act Compliance Division is responsible for enforcing the 1990 Act. Specifically, to remain eligible for federal financial aid funds and avoid penalties, colleges and universities must comply with the following provisions:
- Publish an annual security report and make it available to current and prospective students and employees;
- Keep a public crime log that documents each crime on campus and is accessible to the public;
- Disclose information about incidents of criminal homicide, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson, and hate crimes that occurred on or near campus;
- Issue warnings about Clery Act crimes that pose a threat to students and employees;
- Develop a campus community emergency response and notification strategy that is subject to annual testing;
- Gather and report fire data to the federal government and publish an annual fire safety report;
- Devise procedures to address reports of missing students living in on-campus housing.
For more about the Clery Act, see Clery Center for Security on Campus, http://clerycenter.org .
Were you made aware of your campus’s annual security report before you enrolled? Do you think reporting about campus security is appropriately regulated at the federal level under the Clery Act? Why or why not?
To accomplish its policy priorities, the federal government often needs to elicit the cooperation of states and local governments, using various strategies. Block and categorical grants provide money to lower government levels to subsidize the cost of implementing policy programs fashioned in part by the federal government. This strategy gives state and local authorities some degree of flexibility and discretion as they coordinate with the federal government. On the other hand, mandate compels state and local governments to abide by federal laws and regulations or face penalties.