Opinion ID: 770530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State Law and the CSRA

Text: 28 The Supreme Court has observed that when Congress criminalizes conduct already denounced as criminal by the States, it effects a 'change in the sensitive relation between federal and state criminal jurisdiction'. United States v. Lopez, 574 U.S. 549, 563 n.3, (quoting United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 411-12 (1973)). Ironically, it may be that state power suffers greater disruption when Congress criminalizes conduct that the States have chosen not to criminalize but to regulate in a different fashion, for the federal law assigns to the conduct new costs that differ not just in quantum, but in kind, from the costs defined by the State. Such is the case here. 29 Although Michigan has a felony desertion statute on its books, it is rarely enforced and, in any case, it does not link criminal liability to judicial child support orders. See Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.161 (West 1991) (providing liability for refusing to provide necessary and proper shelter, food, care, and clothing for . . . his or her children under 17 years of age). Civil child support enforcement methods account for virtually all enforcement activity in Michigan. Scott G. Bassett, Family Law, Annual Survey of Michigan Law June 1, 1990-May 31, 1991, 38 Wayne L. Rev. 1045, 1070 (1992). Michigan Law commits to the discretion of state judges the means by which to enforce--or to deter failure to obey--a support order. A circuit court judge may incarcerate a person for child nonsupport, but this remedy is civil in nature. See Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 552.635; Mead v. Batchlor, 460 N.W.2d 493, 500 n.15 (Mich. 1990) (Clearly, it was intended that the Michigan statutory procedure authorizing incarceration for child nonsupport should be regarded as civil in nature.). Furthermore, the judge's discretion in this regard is carefully cabined; an order of incarceration may be entered only if other remedies--such as income withholding, interception of tax refunds, and property liens--appear unlikely to correct the payer's failure or refusal to paysupport. Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 552.637(1). 30 The CSRA disrupts this delicate scheme. By creating a federal criminal penalty/deterrent for disobedience of support orders in some circumstances, the Act renders nugatory the discretion invested in Michigan circuit court judges. Moreover, these judges are subject to election, see Mich. Const. art 6, § 11, and the contours of their discretion are determined by an elected legislature; the CSRA thus prevents Michigan officials from regulating in accordance with the views of the local electorate. See New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 168-69 (1992) (noting that where Congress encourages state regulation rather than compelling it, state officials remain accountable to the people, but that accountability is diminished when, due to federal interference, elected state officials cannot regulate in accordance with the view of the local electorate in matters not pre-empted by federal regulation). In essence, the Act carves up Michigan law by predicating liability on violations of Michigan court orders, but putting deterrence and penalty decisions into the hands of United States officials in that minority of cases in which the state of residence of the payer is different from that of the child. 31 This federal legislative choice is particularly unsettling given that Congressional power to disturb state regulatory programs has customarily been thought to fall into three categories, into none of which the CSRA comfortably fits. Congress may, pursuant to its spending power, influence a State's regulatory decisions by attaching conditions to the receipt of federal funds. See South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987). Congress may also craft programs of cooperative federalism that offer a State the choice of regulating according to federal standards or having state law pre-empted by federal regulation. See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, 452 U.S. 264, 288-89 (1981). Finally, Congress may, of course, pre-empt outright state laws regulating private activity that otherwise fall within the enumerated powers of the Constitution. See Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218 (1947). 32 In enacting the CSRA, Congress has followed none of these well-trodden paths. Although the Act does authorize grants to States to coordinate interstate child support enforcement effort, see 42 U.S.C.A. § 3796cc (West 1994), these monies are not tethered to the criminal provisions of the legislation. The States' ability to assign social and other costs to the disobedience of child support orders is emasculated regardless of whether they accept federal funds. Similarly, the States have no choice between devising remedies within minimum federal standards or having their child support laws pre-empted. Indeed, the CSRA creates no pre-emption issue; the Act is founded on the existence of state court orders, not their displacement. By piggybacking a criminal sanction on Michigan child support orders, the CSRA recognizes the primacy of the State's laws at the same time that it expressly overrides portions of such laws. 33 The Constitution diffuses power to protect the citizenry against just such attempts to fragment official action from political accountability. See The Federalist No. 51, at 323 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1969) (In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments control each other, at the same time that each is controlled by itself.) Among the structural protections of the Constitution is the doctrine of enumerated powers, and the Commerce Clause figures prominently among these. Although judicial efforts tomaintain the federal balance through exposition of the Commerce Clause have taken some turns, Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 514 U.S. 175, 180 (1995), the Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed in United States v. Lopez that there are some activities that States may regulate but Congress may not.