Asymmetric federalism in the USA

BigBlueBox

Banned
What if the United States had adopted some form of asymmetric federalism? This would mean that some states have more rights than others, and some territories could be under direct rule from the federal government. Is it possible that the government could have allowed Indian reservations to be their own autonomous regions that are not part of any state? In a way, we already have asymmetric federalism with Puerto Rico, but is there any way we can take it further and have it more common, and have it enshrined in the Constitution?
 
What if the United States had adopted some form of asymmetric federalism? This would mean that some states have more rights than others, and some territories could be under direct rule from the federal government. Is it possible that the government could have allowed Indian reservations to be their own autonomous regions that are not part of any state? In a way, we already have asymmetric federalism with Puerto Rico, but is there any way we can take it further and have it more common, and have it enshrined in the Constitution?
There could be a suggestion that existing states with slavery could maintain slavery with federal legislation not applying to those states. This would be ensured by a constitutional amendment.

All new states would be free states.

Get rid of the slave vs free state discussion every time new states joined the union in the 1800s.

Once it's there for one thing it could be expanded for others.
 

Schnozzberry

Gone Fishin'
Donor
There was actually a proposal that new states past the original 13 would have less voting power to keep them in check.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I don't see it happening very easily in a situation where the OTL constitution is well-established, since this goes against the way its model of federalism is organised. Such a big alteration later on would require quite dramatic events. An early POD would probably be the easiest way. Maybe more disagreement(s) between states and/or other relevant political factions/powers? The OTL model was a compromise between small and big states, and between those who wanted quite a lot of central power and those who wanted the states to retain more sovereignty. It is possible that more disagreement and less willingness to compromise lead to the rejection of a 'one size fits all' solution in favour of a 'multiple sizes for different states' solution.

One might see a group of 'core states' with full representation in Congress, to whom all the laws made by Congress apply, and whose debts are assumed by Congress. Besides them, there might then be a group of 'associated', peripheral states, who have limited representation compared to the core states, but who are only bound by the Constitution and perhaps certain 'fundamemental laws'. Any other law passed by Congress will only apply in a peripheral state if it is ratified by its legislature. Debts of the peripheral states are not adopted by Congress. Congress will have the power to levy federal taxes in the core states, but the associated states only contribute to the federal treasury via a basic national tarriff (the rate of which, presumably, congress cannot increase without the agreement of the associated states).

Such a model would lead to a very different USA, with the core being more integrated and centralist, and the peripheral associated states having a confederal relation to the core.
 
I could see this possibly if it was decided that some of the larger cities should be broken off from their states, but not that they should be full fledged states of their own. Given how partisan the divide between urban and rural voters can be at times, it would actually be quite reasonable. For example, upstate New York State is very conservative, while New York City is very not.

Perhaps an admission process for cities of a certain size, or size relative to their respective states, can apply to be Federal Cities (or some such name), which are equal to full states, except they only get one Senator, instead of two.
 
Similar to the Federal City / Urban State idea a compromise to the small vs large state issue could be an agreement to split states that grow above a certain size.
This would be more likely to occur with urban areas.
Edit: I could actually see adjacent urban areas applying to unify and do this, though States may adjust their planning permissions to avoid this.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
An elaboration on either Schnozzleberry or Skallagrim's concepts - or both, would be fascinating.

One additional point that occurs to me is this: if we assume that the associated states I suggested only contribute to the federal treasury via a basic national tarriff, and that the rate of that tarriff cannot be increased without the agreement of the associated states (and I doubt they'd accept otherwise), then we end up with a bit of a funny situation. Congress has a tarriff, but cannot raise it easily. It cannot raise it for just the core states, either, because if there is no free trade between all the states, the whole union is pretty useless to begin with. (That issue was a big point at the outset, and presumably the associated states getting to veto a higher tarriff is 'traded' for an article outlawing any and all restrictions to trade between the states.) Now if congress raises the tarriff for just the core states, all foreign trade will just arrive at the associated states, and flow into the core states via that route-- the higher tarriff wouldn't apply at all!

So all this means: the tarriff, the one tax that basically funded the federal government until the mid-to-late 19th century... can't be raised effectively. That probably means a much sooner introduction of direct federal taxation (property tax, maybe?) in the core states. That's an interesting divergence right there.

On the flip side, the associated states can't raise state tarriffs, either, which would be useless for the same reason. So if they want to give their own governments more funding, they'll have to introduce additional state taxation, too. And they'll pretty much have to, if they stay out of the bulk of federal legislation. They'll have to set up their own organisational structure(s). And pay for them.

So tax types and tax rates are probably going to vary wildly, but in both the core and the associated periphery, we'll likely see direct taxation much, much earlier. Food for thought!


Similar to the Federal City / Urban State idea a compromise to the small vs large state issue could be an agreement to split states that grow above a certain size.
This would be more likely to occur with urban areas.

Considering that Wyoming has fewer than 600,000 inhabitants, and New York City has over 8,5 million... trying for anything like parity would have some major implications for NYC. Of course, that also play into the suggestion by @DominusNovus that a 'Federal City' would get only one senator. What, Wyoming's fewer than 600,000 get two, while NYC's more than 8,5 million get one? Seems a bit strange... Nevertheless, the basic idea of splitting states up is not a ludicrous idea. One might combine division and fusion, splitting off major cities to become 'urban states' and merging thinly populated areas to become territorially vast 'rural states'.

(My personal suggestion for the issue of over- or under-representation is, as always, to simply devolve as many powers as possible. If typically progressive urban areas and typically conservative rural areas are pretty thoroughly divided from each other, and both get to decide about 90% of policy for themselves... I think you'll prevent a lot of political deadlock.)
 
Well, nobody ever said the Senate was supposed to be representative. The idea of just making NYC a state would work fine, for the most part, except that it wouldn't fit the call for asymmetrical federalism.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Well, nobody ever said the Senate was supposed to be representative. The idea of just making NYC a state would work fine, for the most part, except that it wouldn't fit the call for asymmetrical federalism.

True. Okay, alternative idea, based on what I suggested just now: you divide (and where needed, combine) everything into small, densely populated urban states and large, thinly populated rural states. They all have their own state government. Here's the kicker: the rural states have a 'rural congress' and the urban states have an 'urban congress'. These two congresses make laws that apply only to the rural and the urban states, respectively. Above that, you have the national congress, which is basically concerned only with foreign policy and the military.

Let the subcongressional weirdness commence!
 
True. Okay, alternative idea, based on what I suggested just now: you divide (and where needed, combine) everything into small, densely populated urban states and large, thinly populated rural states. They all have their own state government. Here's the kicker: the rural states have a 'rural congress' and the urban states have an 'urban congress'. These two congresses make laws that apply only to the rural and the urban states, respectively. Above that, you have the national congress, which is basically concerned only with foreign policy and the military.

Let the subcongressional weirdness commence!

Pre-WWI Finland called, they want their system of government back.
 
What if the United States had adopted some form of asymmetric federalism? This would mean that some states have more rights than others, and some territories could be under direct rule from the federal government. Is it possible that the government could have allowed Indian reservations to be their own autonomous regions that are not part of any state? In a way, we already have asymmetric federalism with Puerto Rico, but is there any way we can take it further and have it more common, and have it enshrined in the Constitution?

You'd probably have to do something with the electoral process, wherein the residents of some states' votes count for much more than the residents in others.

Eh, sounds improbable on second thought.
 
There's this TL, which involves not all of the states ratifying the constitution, but are still bound together, and this TL, where there are two congresses and two presidents.

Is a 'two-speed America' possible? Could the Confederation remain operative but with a subset of states forming a tighter union amongst themselves?
 
What if the United States had adopted some form of asymmetric federalism? This would mean that some states have more rights than others, and some territories could be under direct rule from the federal government. Is it possible that the government could have allowed Indian reservations to be their own autonomous regions that are not part of any state? In a way, we already have asymmetric federalism with Puerto Rico, but is there any way we can take it further and have it more common, and have it enshrined in the Constitution?

If the US faced more military threats when the Constitution was being drafted, I guess you could get a system set up whereby states in military sensitive areas had less autonomy, to allow the Federal government to better coordinate the US' defences. Only problem is that a threat serious enough to warrant this might well be enough to butterfly away the AWI altogether.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Now that I think this through, I feel like the best way for this to happen is if the federal government was restricted to doing things that it was expressly granted the power to do in the Constitution. This would lead to individual groups of states deciding to collaborate more with each other, leading to an inner core of states and an outer periphery, as well as regional power blocs of states in the union. This would kind of resemble BeNeLux and Visegrad Group in the EU, as well as "two-speed Europe". Eventually, a constitutional amendment can be made recognizing the right of states to collaborate more closely with other states through their own free will, and the federal government can also pass laws that allow states to opt-out if they wish.
 

Deleted member 97083

In a way, the symmetry of American federalism is asymmetric due to states of different populations getting the same number of senators. Compare the voting power of someone in Wyoming vs someone in California.
 
Eventually, a constitutional amendment can be made recognizing the right of states to collaborate more closely with other states through their own free will, and the federal government can also pass laws that allow states to opt-out if they wish.
A very good idea that'd almost be OTL if only the federal government started to stay within its limited powers:
US Constitution said:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress... enter into any Agreement or
Compact with another State [i.e. they can if Congress agrees]
 
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