Drinking Age and Federal Highways Background Essay
Federalism Case Study: Highways and the Drinking Age
The relationship between the states and federal government is often complex. The informal boundaries of power are contested, as state governments and the national government dispute where the informal boundaries of power lie on various issues. Each level seeks to preserve authority over its powers while at times pushing against the powers of the other level.
After World War II, the minimum drinking age in most states was 21. After the Twenty-Sixth Amendment was ratified in 1971—which lowered the voting age to 18—young people made the argument that it was unfair that they could fight for their country and vote but could not drink alcohol. As a result, many states lowered the drinking age. By the early 1980s, though, concerns grew nationally about the negative consequences of more permissive alcohol laws – particularly on drunk driving. Interest groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and others were concerned about the growing number of accidents and fatalities caused by driving under the influence of alcohol. These groups lobbied for more regulation including lowering the legal blood alcohol limit and raising the legal drinking age.
In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA), which was designed to encourage states to raise the “drinking age” from 18 to 21. Under the law, any state that did not raise the age would have 5 percent of national highway funds withheld. State governments had been the primary level of government regulating alcohol production and consumption since 1933, when the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended Prohibition. The second section of the Twenty-First Amendment reads, “The transportation or importation into any State…for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”
The federal government had no legal authority to force the states to raise the drinking age to 21, but they did have the power to pressure the states to act in a certain manner by withholding highway funding. South Dakota challenged the constitutionality of the NMDAA in the courts by arguing that the NMDAA violated the Twenty-First Amendment and exceeded congressional spending powers.
In South Dakota v. Dole (1987), the Supreme Court decided by a 7-2 majority that, “Even if Congress might lack the power to impose a national minimum drinking age directly, we conclude the encouragement to state action…is a valid use of the spending power.” The Court held that Congress was legitimately exercising its spending power in pursuit of the common good and that the “relatively small percentage” of highway funds the noncompliant states would lose was not excessive.
Justice William Brennan dissented with a reassertion of the federalism principle. “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.”
Eventually, all the states agreed to raise the minimum drinking age to 21. The Supreme Court was, as Justice Brennan put it, trying to strike that proper balance between federal and state authority. That is the crux of the principle of federalism.
In this instance, the federal government used its spending power to essentially force the states to act in a certain way. The states could refuse to comply on solid constitutional grounds, but no states were willing to lose millions of dollars for their highways. The dynamics around this issue were complex ones that explored the boundaries of power between the different levels of government.