Drinking Age and Federal Highways Case Study Primary Sources

Twenty-First Amendment, 1933

Building Context: In 1919, at the end of World War I, the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment after many decades of movements for temperance and prohibition. The amendment banned the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors. Later that year, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which enforced the provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment. The unpopular constitutional amendment was repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-First Amendment. The Twenty-First Amendment granted states the primary power to regulate alcohol.

Text:

Section 1

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2

The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Comprehension and Analysis Questions: 

• Why did the states ratify the Twenty-First Amendment?
• How did giving the states greater power to regulate alcohol within their borders support the principle of federalism?

National Minimum Drinking Age Act, 1984

Building Context: Congress had provided funding to the states for interstate highways since 1921, but in 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA) placed a new condition on the receipt of those funds. Under the NMDAA, any state that refused to raise its drinking age to 21 would see its funds decreased by 5 percent. The Twenty-First Amendment empowered the states to regulate alcohol, but the Constitution does not mention setting a drinking age. By attaching the drinking-age condition, Congress sought to influence state decision-making through its spending power.

Original Source: The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act | APIS – Alcohol Policy Information System

Text:

23 U.S.C. § 158. National minimum drinking age.

(a) Withholding of Funds for Noncompliance.

(1) In general. The Secretary shall withhold 10 per centum of the amount required to be apportioned to any State under each of sections 104(b)(1), 104(b)(3), and 104(b(4) of this title on the first day of each fiscal year after the second fiscal year beginning after September 30, 1985, in which the purchase or public possession in such State of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful.

…

(b) Effect of Withholding of Funds. No funds withheld under this section from apportionment to any State after September 30, 1988, shall be available for apportionment to that State.

Comprehension and Analysis Questions:

• How is the NMDAA different from other laws providing funding to states for highways?
• Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to tax to provide for the general welfare. Do you agree that regulating drinking age as a part of highway safety is considered the general welfare. Why or why not?

 

South Dakota v. Dole (1987)

Building Context: After the passage of the NMDAA in 1984, South Dakota wanted to remain eligible for federal highway funding without changing its drinking age, which was 19. South Dakota argued it was being unfairly coerced (forced) to change its drinking age. The Supreme Court took the case, opting to decide whether: 1) the NMDAA violated the Twenty-First Amendment, which gave the power to regulate the sale of alcohol to the states, and 2) Congress had exceeded its spending powers by making federal highway funds conditioned on state adoption of a uniform minimum drinking age of 21. The Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the federal government.

For more background on this case, watch this Homework Help video.

Caption: Chief Justice William Rehnquist 

Majority Opinion Excerpt, Chief Justice William Rehnquist

The Constitution empowers Congress to ‘lay and collect Taxes … and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.’ Incident to this power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds…The breadth of this power was made clear in United States v. Butler, …Thus, objectives not thought to be within Article I’s [enumerated powers] may nevertheless be attained through the use of the spending power and the conditional grant of federal funds.

The spending power is not unlimited, but is instead limited by several general restrictions …[1] the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of ‘the general welfare’…[2] if Congress desires to condition the States’ receipt of federal funds, it ‘must do so unambiguously, enabling States to exercise their choice knowingly, …[3] conditions [must be related] to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs’…[4, given that] other constitutional provisions [do not] provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds.

Congress found that the differing drinking ages in the States created particular incentives for young persons to combine their desire to drink with their ability to drive, and that this interstate problem required a national solution. The means it chose to address this dangerous situation [withholding 5 percent of highway funds available to States that refused to raise their drinking age to 21] were reasonably calculated to advance the general welfare. The conditions upon which States receive the funds, moreover, could not be more clearly stated by Congress. By enacting [the National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act, 1984], Congress conditioned the receipt of federal funds in a way reasonably calculated to address this particular impediment to a purpose for which the funds are expended [a safe interstate highway system].

Our decisions have recognized that, in some circumstances, the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion.’ Here, however, Congress has directed only that a State desiring to establish a minimum drinking age lower than 21 lose a relatively small percentage [5 percent] of certain federal highway funds.

Here, Congress has offered relatively mild encouragement to the States to enact higher minimum drinking ages than they would otherwise choose. But the enactment of such laws remains the prerogative of the States not merely in theory, but in fact. Even if Congress might lack the power to impose a national minimum drinking age directly, we conclude that encouragement to state action [through the attachment of conditions to federal funds] is a valid use of the spending power.

 

Caption: Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Dissenting Opinion Excerpt, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

…[T]he Court’s application of the requirement that the condition imposed be reasonably related to the purpose for which the funds are expended is cursory and unconvincing. In my view, establishment of a minimum drinking age of 21 is not sufficiently related to interstate highway construction to justify so conditioning funds for that purpose.

When Congress appropriates money to build a highway, it is entitled to insist that the highway be a safe one. But it is not entitled to insist as a condition of the use of highway funds that the State impose or change regulations in other areas of the State’s social and economic life because of attenuated [weak] or tangential relationship to highway use or safety. Indeed, if the rule were otherwise, the Congress could effectively regulate almost any area of a State’s social, political, or economic life on the theory that use of the interstate transportation system is somehow enhanced.

Rather than a condition determining how federal highway money shall be expended, it is a regulation determining who shall be able to drink liquor. As such, it is not justified by the spending power.

The immense size and power of the Government of the United States ought not obscure its fundamental character. It remains a Government of enumerated powers. Because [the National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act, 1984] cannot be justified as an exercise of any power delegated to the Congress, it is not authorized by the Constitution.

 

Caption: Justice William J. Brennan

Dissenting Opinion Excerpt, Justice William J. Brennan

I agree with JUSTICE O’CONNOR that regulation of the minimum age of purchasers of liquor falls squarely within the ambit of those powers reserved to the States by the Twenty-first Amendment. Since States possess this constitutional power, Congress cannot condition a federal grant in a manner that abridges this right. The Amendment, itself, strikes the proper balance between federal and state authority. I therefore dissent.

Comprehension and Analysis Questions:

• What restrictions does the Court place on Congress that guide or limit how it may use the spending power?
• What does the Court argue regarding whether federal conditions were coercive in directing state decision-making in this area? Explain your position.
• On what bases do the dissenting justices disagree with the Court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Dole?

 

U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Adminstration (FHWA) 2024 budget request

Building Context: The U.S. Department of Transportation provides billions of dollars to state and local governments for road improvements each year. These funds are distributed using a variety of methods including formula grants, block grants, and discretionary grants. Formula and block grants are noncompetitive awards based on a predetermined formula, such as state population. A discretionary grant is a merit-based competitive grant for which states must apply. The following items were taken from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) budget request to Congress.

Original Source

IIJA: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (or Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill) signed into law by President Joseph Biden on November 15, 2021.

Text:

FHWA’s FY 2024 budget requests $60.8 billion, which when added to the $9.5 billion in advance appropriations contained in the IIJA, will result in a total of $70.3 billion to advance the Secretary of Transportation’s vision of building America’s economy and infrastructure back better. This request will continue to prioritize safety as the foundation of everything we do, while helping our Nation’s economy thrive, rising to the climate challenge, and ensuring transportation equity across all communities. FHWA will work closely with State Departments of Transportation, local and Tribal governments, and other project sponsors to ensure they have the flexibility and support they need to leverage IIJA formula and grant funds in ways that most benefit their States and communities.

Example line items from the FHA’s requested budget:

• Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) ($3.1 billion)
• Transportation Alternatives ($1.4 billion)
• Work Zone Safety Training grant program ($1.9 million)
• Railway-Highway Crossing Program ($245 million)
• Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program ($70 million)
• Bridge Formula Program ($5.5 billion)
• Bridge Investment Program ($2.5 billion)
• Congestion Relief Program ($50 million)
• National Highway Performance Program ($29.6 billion)
• Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG) ($14.4 billion)
• National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program ($1.0 billion)
• Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grants Program ($500 million)
• Carbon Reduction Program ($1.3 billion)
• Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost saving Transportation (PROTECT) Formula Grant Program $1.46 billion
• PROTECT discretionary program $300 million

Comprehension and Analysis Questions:

• How do states receive money from the federal government for transportation purposes?
• How does the FHWA’s requested budget support items that are not specifically related to transportation?
• How does this information connect to the concept of a federal force of funding and federalism?
• Given this information, do you think it is coercive for Congress to withhold a percentage of highway funding to states unless states have a minimum drinking age of 21? Why or why not?