Think Progress: Trump’s Unconstitutional Plan to Turn Cities Into Federal Police States

By Ian Millheiser:

For those of us who lived through the early years of the Obama administration, however, when many conservatives claimed that virtually anything the former president said or did violated the Tenth Amendment, there’s a great deal of irony in Trump’s threat. Sending federal agents to address non-economic crimes of violence, in the manner that Trump suggests, actually does violate the Tenth Amendment.

Briefly speaking, the Constitution includes a laundry lists of powers that the federal government is allowed to exercise — and, in the Tenth Amendment’s words, all other powers “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The broadest federal power is Congress’ ability to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states,” which gives the national government broad authority over economic matters.

But the federal government’s power over non-economic matters, including violent crime, is far more limited. Thus, in United States v. Morrison, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of federal law providing that someone “who commits a crime of violence motivated by gender . . . shall be liable to the party injured.” Violent crimes can be horrific, but they are generally beyond the federal government’s power to regulate and must be addressed by state law. That’s why Trump cannot simply “send in the Feds” to deal with local violent crimes.

The Full Story (January 25, 2017)