Opinion ID: 705140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the tenth amendment challenge

Text: 7 No one in this case questions the fact that regulation of the sales of handguns lies within the broad commerce power of Congress. 5 The issue for decision is whether the manner in which Congress has chosen to regulate in the Brady Act violates the Tenth Amendment. 8 The Tenth Amendment provides that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people. U.S. Const. amend. X. As a textual matter, therefore, the Tenth Amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124, 61 S.Ct. 451, 462, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941). By its terms, the Amendment does not purport to limit the commerce power or any other enumerated power of Congress. 9 In recent years, however, the Tenth Amendment has been interpreted to encompass any implied constitutional limitation on Congress' authority to regulate state activities, whether grounded in the Tenth Amendment itself or in principles of federalism derived generally from the Constitution. South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505, 511 n. 5, 108 S.Ct. 1355, 1360 n. 5, 99 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988). Thus, the Tenth Amendment confirms that the power of the Federal Government is subject to limits that may, in a given instance, reserve power to the States. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 157, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 2418, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992). The question before us is whether the Brady Act, by requiring CLEOs to perform background checks on handgun purchasers, transgressed such an implied limitation on federal power. We conclude that it did not. 10 There are numbers of ways in which the federal government is permitted to secure the assistance of state authorities in achieving federal legislative goals. First and most directly, the federal government may coerce the states and their employees into complying with federal laws of general applicability. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985). 6 Second, Congress may condition the grant of federal funds on the States' taking governmental action desired by Congress. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 107 S.Ct. 2793, 97 L.Ed.2d 171 (1987). 11 These broad categories do not exhaust, however, the means by which the federal government can enlist state employees in implementing federal programs. State judicial and administrative bodies may be required to apply federal law. Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967 (1947); FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 760-61, 102 S.Ct. 2126, 2137-38, 72 L.Ed.2d 532 (1982). The federal government may offer to preempt regulation in a given area, and permit the states to avoid preemption if they regulate in a manner acceptable to Congress. Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, 452 U.S. 264, 290-91, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2367-68, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981). 12 The federal government has been permitted effectively to compel the states to issue registered rather than bearer bonds. South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505, 514, 108 S.Ct. 1355, 1361-62, 99 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988). Finally, the federal government has been permitted to require state utility regulators to consider prescribed federal standards in determining regulatory policies. FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. at 765, 102 S.Ct. at 2140-41. In the course of the latter ruling, the Supreme Court referred to and rejected the 19th century view that Congress has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever, and compel him to perform it. Id. at 761, 102 S.Ct. at 2138 (quoting Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 107, 16 L.Ed. 717 (1861)). That view, said the Court, is not representative of the law today. Id. The federal government has some power to enlist a branch of state government ... to further federal ends. Id. 456 U.S. at 762, 102 S.Ct. at 2139. 13 Against this background, there would appear to be nothing unusually jarring to our system of federalism in the Brady Act's requirement that CLEOs, during a five-year interim period, make a reasonable effort to ascertain the lawfulness of handgun purchases. The obligation imposed on state officers by the Brady Act is no more remarkable than, say, the federally-imposed duties of state officers to report missing children, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5779(a), or traffic fatalities, 23 U.S.C. Sec. 402(a). 14 Mack and Printz, however, contend that the precedential background set forth above was changed by New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), and that the federal government is now flatly precluded from commanding state officers to assist in carrying out a federal program. We do not read New York that broadly. 15 Although we concede that there is language in New York that lends support to the view of Mack and Printz, that language must be interpreted in the context in which it was offered. New York was concerned with a federal intrusion on the States of a different kind and much greater magnitude than any involved in the Brady Act. The constitutional evil that New York addressed was one recognized by several of the cases already cited: the federal government was attempting to direct the States to enact their own legislation or regulations according to a federal formula. 16 New York involved the constitutional validity of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2021b et seq. The part of the Act that the Court found to violate the Tenth Amendment was the so-called take title provision. Under that provision, a State that failed to regulate radioactive waste according to congressional standards was simply given title to the waste within its borders (which previously would have been in private hands). The waste then became the total responsibility of the State as owner. The alternative to this unacceptable prospect was for the State to legislate or regulate in a manner that Congress dictated, and a direct order to regulate, standing alone, would ... be beyond the authority of Congress. Id. at 176, 112 S.Ct. at 2428. Thus, in response to the government's argument that a strong federal interest supported the take title provision, the Court in New York stated: whether or not a particularly strong federal interest enables Congress to bring state governments within the orbit of generally applicable federal regulation, no Member of the Court has ever suggested that such a federal interest would enable Congress to command a state government to enact state regulation. Id. at 178, 112 S.Ct. at 2429. In the same vein was the Court's conclusion after reviewing the debates at the time of the founding of the Constitution: 17 We have always understood that even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts. E.g., FERC v. Mississippi.... The allocation of power contained in the Commerce Clause, for example, authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce directly; it does not authorize Congress to regulate state governments' regulation of interstate commerce. 18 Id. at 166, 112 S.Ct. at 2423. 19 Other decisions of the Supreme Court have recognized this proposition that the federal government cannot coerce States into performing the ultimately sovereign acts of legislating or regulating in a manner specified by the federal government. In Virginia Surface Mining, the Court noted that the provision of an alternative of federal regulation rendered federal standards for state regulation permissible; because the State had a constitutional option, there can be no suggestion that the Act commandeers the legislative processes by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program. Virginia Surface Mining, 452 U.S. at 288, 101 S.Ct. at 2366 (emphasis added). Similarly, in FERC v. Mississippi, the Court noted that the federal command that the State consider federal alternatives was constitutional because [t]here is nothing in PURPA 'directly compelling' the States to enact a legislative program. FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. at 765, 102 S.Ct. at 2141. 20 New York, then, is best read as a case that draws a line already partly delineated in Virginia Surface Mining and FERC v. Mississippi: the federal government is not entitled to coerce the States into legislating or regulating according to the dictates of the federal government. Certainly New York did not purport to overrule Virginia Surface Mining or FERC v. Mississippi, or even to disavow the latter decision's rejection of the nineteenth century view that the federal government cannot command state employees. New York can be read consistently with these cases as an instance where the etiquette of federalism has been violated by a formal command from the National Government directing the State to enact a certain policy, cf. New York. United States v. Lopez, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1642, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (Kennedy, J., concurring); see also Board of Natural Resources v. Brown, 992 F.2d 937, 947 (9th Cir.1993) (direct commands to the states to regulate according to Congress's instructions violate the Tenth Amendment as interpreted by New York). 7 21 There are good reasons for focusing Tenth Amendment concern on federal coercion of a State's enactment of legislation or regulations or creation of an administrative program. These activities are inherently central acts of a sovereign; if an area of state activity is to be protected from direct coercion by an implication drawn from the Tenth Amendment, legislating and regulating are prime candidates. [T]he power to make decisions and to set policy is what gives the State its sovereign nature. FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. at 761, 102 S.Ct. at 2138. There is a second reason, also, emphasized in New York itself. Democratic governments must be politically accountable. When the federal government requires the States to enact legislation, the enacted legislation is state legislation. Thus, it will likely be state officials who will bear the brunt of public disapproval, while the federal officials who devised the regulatory program may remain insulated from the electoral ramifications of their decision. New York, 505 U.S. at 169, 112 S.Ct. at 2424. When the federal government itself imposes a requirement on a state official, the requirement is more clearly an act of the federal government and thus does not, to the same extent, undermine political accountability. 8 22 The Brady Act is not the kind of a federal mandate condemned by New York, nor does it present the concerns related above. The Brady Act does not embody a mandate to the States in the sovereign sense discussed in New York, FERC v. Mississippi, or Virginia Surface Mining. The Brady Act is a regulatory program aimed at individuals and not the States. It is true that, for a limited period of time, the Act requires state law enforcement officials, the CLEOs, to make reasonable efforts to assist in carrying out the federal program. But the CLEOs are not being commanded to engage in the central sovereign processes of enacting legislation or regulations. They are not even being asked to produce a state policy, for which the state must bear political accountability. Instead, they are directed to serve for a temporary period as law enforcement functionaries in carrying out a federal program. Their activities are not alien to their usual line of work, and represent a minimal interference with state functions. In that sense, their duties are not different from other minor obligations that Congress has imposed on state officials. 23 Mack and Printz do not agree that the Brady Act's interference with their state duties is minimal. They point out that there are many factors that may make a prospective handgun purchase illegal under the Act. A purchase is unlawful, for example, if the purchaser is a fugitive, is an unlawful user of a controlled substance, has been adjudicated a mental defective, has been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, has renounced his citizenship, or is under certain restraining orders involving an intimate partner. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(g). They also contend that it will be unduly burdensome to give reasons for rejecting a proposed purchase, within 20 days of being requested by the disappointed purchaser. See Sec. 922(s)(6)(C). Mack and Printz point out that they are sheriffs in rural counties with limited staffs and resources. To research for all of these disabilities and to give reasons for rejection, Mack and Printz argue, will either take all of their time or so much of it that they will be unable to perform their regular county duties. 24 The government, on the other hand, argues that there is no requirement that CLEOs pursue all of these avenues of potential disqualification. They are enjoined only to make a reasonable effort, Sec. 922(s)(2), and the statute's only fixed requirement is a search in whatever recordkeeping systems are available and in a national system. Id. A reasonable effort, the government contends, might in the circumstances of Mack and Printz simply be a check of the existing computer records. 25 We agree, and the government concedes, that there is likely to be some point at which a federal statute that enlists the aid of state employees can become so burdensome to the State that it violates the Tenth Amendment. Surely the federal government cannot stall the state government in its tracks by imposing all-consuming federal duties on the State's employees. We conclude, however, that the Brady Act does not approach that point. Mack and Printz have not demonstrated that the Act will interfere unduly with their duties. Indeed, to a considerable degree, the dispute over the magnitude of the burden imposed upon them is not ripe for resolution. Mack and Printz have not been subjected to any interpretation of the Act, or any attempt to enforce it against them, that requires them to do more than check computer records. On this record, we cannot conclude that a reasonable effort inevitably requires more than this minimum for Mack and Printz. To perform such computer checks, and to explain reasons for rejection when and if disappointed purchasers so request, has not been shown to constitute the kind of interference with state functions that would raise Tenth Amendment concerns. It follows even more strongly that the minimal requirement of destruction of records presents no constitutional problem. 26 We also find no support for the Tenth Amendment claims of Mack and Printz in the cases from our circuit that they cite. See Board of Natural Resources v. Brown, 992 F.2d 937 (9th Cir.1993); United States v. Best, 573 F.2d 1095 (9th Cir.1978); Brown v. Environmental Protection Agency, 521 F.2d 827 (9th Cir.1975), vacated as moot 431 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 1635, 52 L.Ed.2d 166 (1977). 9 In Board of Natural Resources we held that the Forest Resources Conservation and Shortage Relief Act violated the Tenth Amendment. Board of Natural Resources, 992 F.2d at 947. That Act however--akin to the statute in New York--required the States to issue regulations and was far more demanding of state officials than the Brady Act. See Board of Natural Resources, 992 F.2d at 947. Best applied the National League of Cities governmental function test, Best, 573 F.2d at 1102, which has been abandoned. See Garcia Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. at 531, 105 S.Ct. at 1007 (overruling National League of Cities ). And Brown, like Board of Natural Resources, involved regulations that clearly intruded upon a state's sovereignty, unlike the contested provisions of the Brady Act. See Brown, 521 F.2d at 829-830 (State had to develop and implement plan for implementing, enforcing, and maintaining national air standards). Additionally, Brown relied upon the Tenth Amendment view espoused in Kentucky v. Dennison, 65 U.S. (24 How.) 66, 107, 16 L.Ed. 717 (1861), overruled by Puerto Rico v. Branstad, 483 U.S. 219, 107 S.Ct. 2802, 97 L.Ed.2d 187 (1987), that the Federal Government ... has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatsoever.... See Brown, 521 F.2d at 841. As the Supreme Court has made clear, the view espoused in Kentucky v. Dennison is no longer representative of the law. FERC, 456 U.S. at 761, 102 S.Ct. at 2138. 10 We therefore reject Mack's and Printz's Tenth Amendment challenges to the Brady Act. 11