The Political Safeguards of Horizontal Federalism

Abstract

For decades, we have debated whether "political safeguards" preserve healthy relations between the states and the federal government and thus reduce or eliminate the need for judges to referee state--federal tussles. No one has made such an argument about relations among the states, however, and the few scholars to have considered the question insist that such safeguards don't exist. This Article takes the opposite view and lays down the intellectual foundations for the political safeguards of horizontal federalism.