Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
Fletcher v. Peck (1810) was the first time the Supreme Court interpreted the Contract Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 10, which prohibits…
Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
Dartmouth College had been granted a charter by the Crown during the colonial period. After independence, the State of New Hampshire created a new…
Champion v. Ames (1903)
In Champion v. Ames (1903), the U.S. Supreme Court sustained a federal statute that made it illegal to transport lottery tickets in interstate commerce.…
Hipolite Egg Company v. United States (1911)
In Hipolite Egg Company v. United States (1911), the Court upheld the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited the shipment of adulterated foods in…
Urban Policy
The term “urban policy” refers to the myriad of policy issues, problems, and solutions that are addressed by the government and other political actors…
Unfunded Mandates
Unfunded mandates are rules and constraints imposed by legislative, executive, or judicial actions of one level of government on other sectors in the economy.…
Rural Policy
Over the course of American history, rural communities transformed from the home of the vast majority of Americans to the home of an ever-smaller…
Grants-in-Aid
A grant-in-aid is the transfer of money from one level of government to another for a specific purpose and subject to substantive and procedural…
Fiscal Federalism
Fiscal federalism is an economic framework for understanding the relationship among federal, state, and local governments that focuses on the division of spending and…
Crossover Sanctions
Crossover sanctions are fiscal sanctions applied to one government program in order to influence policy in another program area. Because the sanction withholds money…
New Federalism (Reagan)
President Ronald Reagan’s proposals to reform the United States’ federal system differed significantly from the federalism proposals of his predecessors, were not all successfully…
Great Society
The “Great Society” is a phrase used to describe the domestic policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–69). While many of the programs had…
Morrill Act of 1862
Signed on July 2, 1862, by President Lincoln, the Morrill Act of 1862 granted public lands to the states on the condition that the…
