Module 24: The Tenth Amendment

The Text

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

U.S. Const. amend. X (ratified December 15, 1791)¹

The Tenth Amendment has 28 words. The enrolled resolution of September 25, 1789 called it "Article the twelfth," and it became part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791, along with the nine other articles that three-fourths of the state legislatures ratified.¹ It is the shortest statement of how the whole document is organized: the national government holds the powers the Constitution gives it, and the rest stays where it was.

Three phrases carry the sentence. "Not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" points to the list of grants, mostly in Article I, section 8, and to the powers given to the President and the federal courts. "Nor prohibited by it to the States" points to the limits the Constitution places on the states, such as the ban on coining money or making treaties in Article I, section 10. "Reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" says what is left. The word "respectively" matters here, because it means each state holds its own share and the shares are not pooled.

The sentence leaves a good deal open. It does not say which powers were delegated. It does not say how to read a grant of power when its edges are unclear. It does not say whether the reserved powers form a protected zone that Congress may not enter, or only a description of what Congress was never given. And it does not say which of the reserved powers belong to the states and which to "the people." Most of the case law since 1819 is an argument about the first three gaps. The fourth has produced one modern opinion, discussed below, and little else.

One word is missing, and the missing word is the subject of this lesson's central story. The sentence does not say "expressly delegated." An earlier American constitution did say that, and the men who wrote the Tenth Amendment saw to it that theirs did not.

The Articles of Confederation and the Word "Expressly"

The first constitution of the United States was the Articles of Confederation, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the date the Founders' Constitution gives for the text. Its Article II is the direct ancestor of the Tenth Amendment:

"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

Articles of Confederation, art. II (1781)⁴

The clause runs to 29 words, one more than the Tenth Amendment, and the two share most of their shape: a retained share, a delegated share, and a central government that holds only the second. The difference is one adverb. Under the Articles, the central government held only what the document "expressly" gave it. Whatever the Articles did not spell out stayed with the states, with no room for implication.⁴

That rule fit how the Confederation worked. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor described it in New York v. United States (1992): under the Articles, Congress "could not directly tax or legislate upon individuals," a point she took from a law review article by Akhil Amar. She also quoted Alexander Hamilton's complaint that the "great and radical vice" of the Confederation was the "principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS" in place of legislation for individuals.³ Other lessons in this course cover that structure and the crisis years of the 1780s, including the Thirteen Articles lesson, the Crisis Years and the road from Annapolis to Philadelphia. What matters here is the legal consequence of the adverb. A Congress allowed to do only what was expressly written had no easy way to respond to a problem its drafters had not foreseen.

Joseph Story, whose Commentaries on the Constitution appeared in 1833, put the consequence in strong terms. He wrote that one of the great defects of the confederation was a clause "prohibiting the exercise of any power, jurisdiction, or right, not expressly delegated," and that as a result Congress "were crippled at every step of their progress" and were "often compelled by the very necessities of the times to usurp powers, which they did not constitutionally possess."⁵ Story was writing 40 years after the fact and was a nationalist in his reading of the Constitution, so his account is one voice in the argument. But the facts it rests on are in the text of Article II, and the men who proposed the Tenth Amendment in 1789 had lived under it.

Chief Justice John Marshall made the same point from the bench. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) he wrote that there was "no phrase in the instrument which, like the articles of confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers; and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described." He added that "the men who drew and adopted this amendment had experienced the embarrassments resulting from the insertion of this word in the articles of confederation, and probably omitted it, to avoid those embarrassments."⁶ Marshall said "probably." He was inferring a motive, and the lesson will return to the question of how well the record supports it.

The substance of Article II did not die in 1787. The idea that the states keep every power they did not give away is the idea in the Tenth Amendment. The idea that the central government gets only powers spelled out in so many words is the idea the 1789 Congress declined to carry over. The history of the amendment is the history of keeping the first idea and rejecting the second.

The Ratification Debate: Enumerated Powers and a Missing Bill of Rights

The Constitution of 1787 came with no bill of rights and no statement about reserved powers. Its defenders thought none was needed, because the new government could do only what was listed. James Wilson, speaking to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention on December 4, 1787, said "the powers are as minutely enumerated and defined as was possible." He added that the "general clause," which gave Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying out its powers, was "nothing more than what was necessary to render effectual the particular powers that are granted." He challenged opponents to say whether "the enumerated powers" were "as well defined here, as in the present Articles of Confederation."⁷

James Madison made the same case for the public in Federalist No. 45, dated January 26, 1788. "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined," he wrote. "Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite." The federal powers would be used "principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce." The state powers would reach "all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people."⁸ This is the picture the Tenth Amendment later wrote down in one sentence.

Opponents did not accept that an enumeration protected anyone, and at least one of them wanted the Confederation's adverb back. The writer who signed himself "the Federal Farmer," in his sixteenth letter of January 20, 1788, said of the people: "they reserve all powers not expressly delegated by them to those who govern." He noted that a federal constitution, which has to manage only "a few great national concerns," makes it easier to list the powers delegated than the rights reserved. His recommendation followed. "We might advantageously enumerate the powers given," he wrote, "and then in general words, according to the mode adopted in the 2d art. of the confederation, declare all powers, rights and privileges, are reserved, which are not explicitly and expressly given up."⁹ In other words, a pamphleteer writing against the Constitution asked for a clause modeled on Article II of the Articles, adverb included. He also described the argument that a bill of rights is "useless, especially in a federal government, possessing only enumerated power," and "dangerous," because listing some rights may suggest that others are surrendered, as one of "general indefinite propositions without much meaning."⁹ The danger-of-a-list argument is the one the Ninth Amendment answers, and the Ninth is the Tenth's companion in the Bill of Rights.

The state conventions that ratified and proposed amendments produced the immediate source texts. They did not all use the same words, and the differences matter for the "expressly" story.

New York's ratification of July 26, 1788 declared that "every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments."¹⁰ The word is "clearly," not "expressly," and the declaration speaks of powers remaining with the people of the states or with their state governments.

Virginia's proposed amendments of June 27, 1788 began with this one: "each state in the Union shall respectively retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution delegated to the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of the federal government."¹¹ Virginia's text has no adverb at all. It also uses the verb "retain," which echoes the Confederation's "retains."

North Carolina's convention, which met in August 1788, proposed the Virginia wording and went further. Its first amendment added that Congress and its departments could not "exercise any act of authority over any individual in any of the said states, but such as can be justified under some power particularly given in this Constitution." It also called the Constitution "a solemn instrument, defining the extent of their authority."¹² That language is the nearest the ratification record comes to an "expressly" requirement in a proposed amendment, and it spoke of powers "particularly given," not powers "expressly delegated."

So the three state texts that reached Congress as proposals used "clearly," no adverb and "particularly given." None used the Confederation's word, even though a prominent pamphleteer had asked for it. That matters for a claim Madison made in the House in 1789, discussed below, that the opponents of the Constitution had themselves given up the word in the Virginia convention. This lesson did not read the Virginia convention's debates, so it can report Madison's statement and the text of Virginia's proposal, and it cannot test the one against the other.

Drafting in the First Congress: June to September 1789

Madison introduced his proposed amendments in the House on June 8, 1789. They came as a list of resolutions, and the eighth of them paired a reservation of powers with a statement about the separation of powers. It would be inserted "immediately after article 6th," as a new article 7, and its second clause read: "The powers not delegated by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively."¹³ That clause has 20 words. It does not mention "the people," and it carries no adverb.

The House took up the clause on August 18, 1789, in the Committee of the Whole, where the Annals of Congress number it the ninth proposition. Representative Tucker, whom the Annals list only as "Mr. Tucker," moved to prefix "all powers being derived from the people" and also to add the word "expressly," so the clause would read "the powers not expressly delegated by this Constitution."¹⁴

Madison objected to the word. In the Annals's summary of his remarks, it was "impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia." He said he remembered that "expressly" had been moved in the Virginia convention by the opponents of ratification and, "after full and fair discussion, was given up by them." Mr. Sherman agreed with Madison, observing that "corporate bodies are supposed to possess all powers incident to a corporate capacity, without being absolutely expressed." Tucker answered that he thought "every power to be expressly given that could be clearly comprehended within any accurate definition of the general power." His motion was negatived, with no count recorded. Mr. Carroll then proposed adding "or to the people" at the end of the clause, and that was agreed.¹⁴

The question of "expressly" came back on August 21. Representative Gerry moved to insert the word, calling it "an amendment of great importance," and asked for a recorded vote. One-fifth of the members present supported the request for the yeas and nays, so the clerk recorded them: 17 yeas and 32 nays. Gerry and Tucker were among the 17. Madison and Sherman were among the 32. Sherman then moved to reword the last clause so that it read "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," and the House adopted that wording without debate.¹⁴ Those are the 28 words of the Tenth Amendment.

The enrolled resolution of September 25, 1789 carries the clause as "Article the twelfth" in the words Sherman proposed.¹ This lesson did not find or read a record of the Senate's consideration of the clause, so it cannot say whether the Senate debated "expressly" or any other change.

Two points about this record deserve care. First, the Annals of Congress for 1789 are not a verbatim transcript, and the passage quoted above is the Annals's own summary of what members said. That is why the lesson quotes short phrases and says "in the Annals's summary." Second, the vote of 17 to 32 shows that the House declined to add the word, and the Annals's account records two reasons given in debate for declining: the impossibility of listing every means of carrying out a granted power, and the Confederation's experience, which Madison referred to by recalling the Virginia convention. The record does not show that every member who voted no shared those reasons.

Early Readings: Tucker, Monroe and Story

The earliest commentators read the amendment as a statement of the structure already in place. St. George Tucker published an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries in 1803 with notes on the federal Constitution and the laws of Virginia. He quoted the amendment, which he called "the twelfth article of the amendments," the number it carried in the enrolled resolution. Then he listed the nine powers that Article I, section 10 denies the states, from making treaties and coining money to passing bills of attainder and granting titles of nobility. "All other powers of government whatsoever, except these, and such as fall properly under the first or third heads above-mentioned," he wrote, "are therefore reserved to the state governments."¹⁵ Tucker's method is the plain reading of the text. Take the grants to Congress, take the prohibitions on the states, and what remains is reserved.

Tucker also described the federal government in terms that later states'-rights arguments used: "Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent," he wrote of the states, and the federal sovereignty was "an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed." He applied this to the subjects Congress had little to do with. "The right of property, with all it's train of incidents," he said, "seems to have been left exclusively to the state regulations," and crimes not affecting the federal government belonged to "the state jurisprudence."¹⁵ The list of subjects he gave, property, persons, ordinary crime, is the list the modern cases call the police power.

President James Monroe, in a message of May 4, 1822 on the subject of internal improvements, gave a similar inventory of what the states keep. "The militia are the militia of the several States," he wrote, and he continued that "lands are held under the laws of the States; descents, contracts, and all the concerns of private property, the administration of justice, and the whole criminal code" belong to the states, except where federal laws made under granted powers say otherwise.¹⁶ Monroe's list is the nearest thing in the early record to a catalogue of what "reserved to the States" meant in practice.

Joseph Story's Commentaries of 1833 gave the reading that has lasted longest. His section 1900 begins: "This amendment is a mere affirmation of what, upon any just reasoning, is a necessary rule of interpreting the constitution." Because the Constitution is "an instrument of limited and enumerated powers," he wrote, "what is not conferred, is withheld, and belongs to the state authorities, if invested by their constitutions of government respectively in them; and if not so invested, it is retained BY THE PEOPLE, as a part of their residuary sovereignty." That last clause is the only early attempt this lesson found to say what "or to the people" adds: if a state constitution has not given a power to the state government, it remains with the people.⁵

Story then told the story of "expressly." He recounted the House motion and Madison's reply, which he reported as the point that "it is impossible to confine a government to the exercise of express powers" and that "there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication." In section 1901 he drew the conclusion that has been quoted ever since: "All powers not delegated, (not all powers not expressly delegated,) and not prohibited, are reserved." He called attempts to restrict the amendment's meaning attempts "to foist into the text the word 'expressly.'"⁵ Story wrote 44 years after the House debate, so his account of it is a commentator's retelling and the Annals are the nearer source. His reading is one voice in a long argument, and the cases below show how differently Justices have weighed it.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): The Amendment That Omits "Expressly"

The first great test of the reserved-powers idea came in a dispute about a bank. Congress had passed an act on April 10, 1816 to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States, and Maryland's General Assembly passed a law on February 11, 1818 imposing a tax on every bank or branch in the state "not chartered by the legislature." John James sued McCulloch in the Baltimore County court, for himself and for the state, to recover penalties under the Maryland act, and the Maryland court of appeals affirmed the judgment against McCulloch. The case reached the Supreme Court on a writ of error and was argued at the Supreme Court on February 22 to 27 and March 1 to 3, 1819, and Chief Justice Marshall wrote the opinion.⁶

Maryland's counsel argued that a national bank was not among the enumerated powers. In the report's summary of Hopkinson's argument for the state, "no such power is expressly granted by the constitution" and it "has been obtained by implication." Marshall's answer did two things at once. It conceded the fact, saying "among the enumerated powers, we do not find that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation." Then it turned to the text of the new government's charter and found no rule against implication in it. "There is no phrase in the instrument which, like the articles of confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers; and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described."⁶

The Tenth Amendment came in as a supporting authority for the point. "Even the 10th amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had been excited, omits the word 'expressly,'" Marshall wrote, "and declares only, that the powers 'not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people;' thus leaving the question, whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest, has been delegated to the one government, or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument."⁶

That sentence is the textual foundation of modern reserved-powers analysis, and it has a feature that people often miss. It says the amendment does not answer the question of whether a given power was delegated. That question "depend[s] on a fair construction of the whole instrument." The Tenth Amendment protects what is left after the delegations have been read fairly, and it does not shrink the delegations. Marshall's reading is the one Story adopted in 1833, and it is the one the Supreme Court repeated in Darby in 1941.⁵²

Marshall's famous statement of the test for delegated power followed: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end," and consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, "are constitutional."⁶ The Court then held that Congress had power to charter the bank and that the Maryland tax was unconstitutional, on the ground that the states have no power "by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by congress." The opinion states that the Court was "unanimously of opinion" on the tax and that the decision on the bank was "unanimous and decided."⁶

Two features of McCulloch belong in a lesson on reserved powers. First, Marshall did not say the Tenth Amendment has no content. He said the amendment's wording leaves delegation to be settled by construction. Second, the supremacy of a valid federal law over a conflicting state law, which is what defeated the Maryland tax, rests on Article VI and not on the Tenth Amendment. The Court reasoned that the federal government, "though limited in its powers, is supreme."⁶ Those two propositions, limited powers and supremacy within them, are the poles between which every later Tenth Amendment case moves.

Marshall's "probably" about why the framers dropped the word is an inference. This lesson found no source that records why the First Congress dropped it beyond the August 18 and 21 debates, which do record Madison's stated reasons. The history is consistent with Marshall's inference, because Madison pointed to the Confederation and Sherman and Madison pointed to implied powers, but the Annals do not say that the Confederation's difficulties were what moved the 32 members who voted no.¹⁴⁶

From Hammer to Darby: A Wall Built and Taken Down

The Court's best-known use of the Tenth Amendment as a brake on Congress's commerce power came in Hammer v. Dagenhart, decided on June 3, 1918.

Congress had passed a law in 1916 that barred the shipment in interstate commerce of goods made in factories where children under 14 worked, or where children aged 14 to 16 worked more than eight hours a day, six days a week, or at night. A father in North Carolina sued to stop enforcement, on behalf of his two minor sons who worked in a Charlotte cotton mill. The challengers argued that the law was not a regulation of commerce, that it violated the Tenth Amendment and that it violated the Fifth.¹⁷

Justice Day wrote for a divided Court that the law was beyond Congress's power. The goods shipped were "of themselves harmless," he wrote, and the law's effect was not to regulate transportation but to "standardize the ages at which children may be employed in mining and manufacturing within the states." If it were otherwise, "all manufacture intended for interstate shipment would be brought under federal control to the practical exclusion of the authority of the states." He tied the point to the Tenth Amendment: "The grant of authority over a purely federal matter was not intended to destroy the local power always existing and carefully reserved to the states in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution."¹⁷ Justice Holmes dissented, and Justices McKenna, Brandeis and Clarke joined him. That made the vote 5 to 4.¹⁷

The Court reversed course in United States v. Darby, decided on February 3, 1941. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 barred the interstate shipment of goods made by workers paid less than a set minimum or worked more than a set maximum number of hours, and it barred the employment of workers on those terms in producing goods for interstate commerce. The government had charged a Georgia lumber manufacturer with violating the Act. Justice Stone's opinion for the Court held that Congress could do both, and it said that Hammer v. Dagenhart was "overruled."²

The key paragraph for this lesson is Stone's treatment of the Tenth Amendment. He wrote that the Act "is unaffected by the Tenth Amendment," and he gave the reason: "The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered." He continued that "there is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment," and that its purpose was "to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted."²

The Darby reading is a logical consequence of McCulloch. If the Tenth Amendment only restates the division of powers, then whether Congress has power in a given case is a question about the grant. When the power is granted, nothing remains for the amendment to reserve. In New York v. United States (1992), Justice O'Connor quoted the "truism" line and accepted it in a sense, writing that "it is in this sense that the Tenth Amendment 'states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.'" The Court's later opinions treat Darby's sentence as correct and incomplete: correct that the amendment does not enlarge the states' powers, and incomplete because the structure of the Constitution still places some limits on how Congress may use its delegated powers.³

National League of Cities and Garcia: A Limit Found and Lost

The Court tried to find such a limit in 1976. The Fair Labor Standards Act had been amended in 1974 to extend its minimum-wage and overtime rules to most state and local government employees. In National League of Cities v. Usery, decided June 24, 1976, Justice Rehnquist wrote for the Court that Congress could not use the commerce power to regulate "the States' abilities to structure employer-employee relationships in such areas as fire prevention, police protection, sanitation, public health, and parks and recreation." The test turned on whether a function was "essential to separate and independent existence," a phrase the Court took from older cases, and it overruled the earlier decision in Maryland v. Wirtz. Justice Blackmun joined the opinion in a concurrence saying he did not read it "so despairingly" as the dissent did. Justices Brennan, White and Marshall dissented together and Justice Stevens dissented separately, which left a majority of five.¹⁸

Nine years later the Court reversed itself. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority was argued on March 19, 1984, reargued on October 1, 1984 and decided on February 19, 1985. The Labor Department's Wage and Hour Administration had issued an opinion in 1979 that the transit authority was not immune from the Fair Labor Standards Act under National League of Cities, and the authority sued. The district court held that running a municipal transit system is a traditional governmental function and therefore exempt.¹⁹

Justice Blackmun wrote for a 5 to 4 Court. The attempt to draw the boundaries of state immunity "in terms of 'traditional governmental functions'" was, the syllabus summarizes the opinion, "not only unworkable" and also inconsistent with the principles of federalism on which National League of Cities rested. The opinion overruled it. And it substituted a different theory about where the states' protection lies: "State sovereign interests, then, are more properly protected by procedural safeguards inherent in the structure of the federal system than by judicially created limitations on federal power." The states are represented in Congress, and the opinion held that "the political process ensures that laws that unduly burden the States will not be promulgated." It added that the cases before it did not require the Court "to identify or define what affirmative limits the constitutional structure might impose on federal action affecting the States under the Commerce Clause."¹⁹

The dissents were pointed. Justice Powell, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor, wrote that the Court's 5 to 4 decision "substantially alters the federal system embodied in the Constitution." Justice Rehnquist, joining both Powell's and O'Connor's dissents, added that the principle of National League of Cities "will, I am confident, in time again command the support of a majority of this Court." Justice O'Connor wrote that the Court "surveys the battle scene of federalism and sounds a retreat."¹⁹

The majority opinion mentions the Tenth Amendment once, in the question the Court asked the parties to reargue. The case is about the commerce power and about who protects the states. The majority said Congress's own structure does, since state interests are represented there. The dissenters said courts must enforce limits. Justice Powell wrote in a footnote that "one can hardly imagine this Court saying that because Congress is composed of individuals, individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are amply protected by the political process." The Constitution Annotated describes New York v. United States, discussed below, as signaling "a continuing retreat from the narrow conception of state power adopted in Garcia." No case this lesson read has overruled Garcia.¹⁹²⁰

After Garcia: Clear Statements and Commerce Limits

The next steps came from several directions. The first was a rule of statutory reading. In Gregory v. Ashcroft, decided June 20, 1991, the Court considered whether the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act applied to a Missouri constitutional provision that required most state judges to retire at 70. Justice O'Connor wrote for the Court that "the authority of the people of the States to determine the qualifications of their most important government officials" lies "at the heart of representative government," and that because reading the Act to override the provision "would upset the usual constitutional balance of federal and state powers," Congress "must make its intention to do so 'unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.'" The opinion tied the point to Garcia: since the Court had "left primarily to the political process the protection of the States against intrusive exercises of Congress's Commerce Clause powers," it said, "we must be absolutely certain that Congress intended such an exercise." The Court affirmed, and held that the Act did not reach the appointed judges.²¹²⁰

The effect is a presumption in favor of the states. A court applying it asks whether Congress said plainly that it meant to intrude on a core state function, and if Congress did not, the court reads the statute not to reach that far and does not have to rule on how far Congress could go.

The second direction was a renewed set of limits on the commerce power itself. In United States v. Lopez, decided April 26, 1995, the Court held 5 to 4 that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 exceeded Congress's commerce authority. Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion reasoned that possessing a gun in a local school zone "is in no sense an economic activity" that might, through repetition, substantially affect interstate commerce. Justices O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas joined, and Justice Breyer's dissent was joined by Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.²² In United States v. Morrison, decided May 15, 2000, the same five-justice majority held that the civil remedy in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 exceeded both the commerce power and Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. The opinion said that "there is no better example of the police power, which the Founders undeniably left reposed in the States and denied the central government, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims."²³

These cases do not cite the Tenth Amendment as their ground. They apply McCulloch's and Darby's method: a question about the extent of a delegated power, answered by reading the grant. The "reserved" power matters indirectly, since the definition of a delegated power that stops short of general police authority leaves that authority with the states.

New York v. United States (1992): Congress May Not Commandeer a State

The Court's first clear anti-commandeering holding came a year after Gregory. By 1985 a looming shortage of disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste confronted 31 states. Congress responded with the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, which required each state, alone or in a regional compact, to provide for the disposal of waste generated inside its borders. To push the states along, it attached three sets of "incentives."³

The first set was monetary: states with disposal sites could add a surcharge on waste from other states, the Secretary of Energy would collect a portion and hold it in escrow, and states that met a series of milestones would receive payments from the fund. The second set was about access: states that missed deadlines could be charged double and then denied access to other states' disposal sites. The third set, the "take title" provision, said that a state or compact that failed to provide for the disposal of all its internally generated waste by a date set in the Act must, on the request of the waste's owner or generator, take title to the waste and possession of it and become liable for the owner's damages.³

New York State and two of its counties sued, arguing that the three provisions violated the Tenth Amendment and the Guarantee Clause. Justice O'Connor's opinion, decided June 19, 1992, upheld the first two sets of incentives and struck the third. The Court held that "the Constitution does not confer upon Congress the ability simply to compel the States" to dispose of radioactive waste. It explained that "even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts."³

The reasoning came from the structure of the Constitution as the Framers designed it. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress acted on the states. At the Constitutional Convention the delegates chose to give Congress power over individuals. "In providing for a stronger central government, therefore, the Framers explicitly chose a Constitution that confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States," O'Connor wrote. A command to a state legislature runs against that choice. The take-title provision gave a state two options: take title to the waste, or regulate according to Congress's instructions. The Court found each option unconstitutional alone, and so it held that offering the choice did not fix the problem. "Either type of federal action would 'commandeer' state governments into the service of federal regulatory purposes," the opinion said, and the second alternative "would, standing alone, present a simple command to state governments to implement legislation enacted by Congress."³

Two points in the opinion matter for later cases. First, it answered the argument that New York could not complain because its own officials had helped negotiate and had consented to the statute. "The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities," O'Connor wrote. It "divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals." State officials, the opinion added, "cannot consent to the enlargement of the powers of Congress beyond those enumerated in the Constitution."³²⁰ That reasoning moved the Court away from Garcia's idea that the political process would protect state interests. Second, the opinion left plenty of room for federal action. Congress may regulate individuals directly, may preempt state regulation, and may hold out incentives, including conditions on federal funds. The holding forbids a command to the state as a state.³

Justice O'Connor's opinion was joined in full by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Souter and Thomas, and Justices White, Blackmun and Stevens joined Parts III-A and III-B of it. Justice White, joined by Justices Blackmun and Stevens, concurred in part and dissented in part, and said he could join only those two parts and dissented from the rest, including the judgment on the take-title provision. Justice Stevens filed his own opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Counting those partial dissents, the take-title holding was 6 to 3.³

The Court restated the relationship between this holding and the Tenth Amendment. The opinion accepted the "truism" description of Darby and then explained that the "truism" is a statement about the relationship between the amendment and the grants of power: "If a power is delegated to Congress in the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment expressly disclaims any reservation of that power to the States." The opinion said it made no difference whether federalism limits come from the Tenth Amendment or from the absence of a delegated power, and the question in each case is whether "an incident of state sovereignty is protected by a limitation on an Article I power."²⁰

Printz v. United States (1997): The Sheriffs' Case

Five years later the Court extended the rule from state legislatures to state executive officers, and the plaintiffs were sheriffs. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 required the head of the Justice Department to build a national instant background check system by November 30, 1998. Until it was running, the Act's interim provisions told firearms dealers to send the buyer's information to the "chief law enforcement officer" of the buyer's locality, and directed those officers to make a reasonable effort to check the buyer's eligibility. The Act defined the officer as "the chief of police, the sheriff, or an equivalent officer."²⁴

Jay Printz, the Sheriff and Coroner of Ravalli County, Montana, and Richard Mack, also a sheriff, sued to block the requirement. The Court's opinion by Justice Scalia, decided June 27, 1997, noted that both were county officials and observed that most cases under the Act would likely involve local officers.²⁴ The Court held that the interim provision commanding the officers to conduct checks was unconstitutional.

Scalia's opinion rested on three lines of evidence. The first was history: the opinion found little evidence that early Congresses commanded state executive officers to carry out federal programs. The second was the structure of the Constitution. The Framers "rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States," and designed a system in which "the State and Federal Governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people." Under that design, states "retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty." The third was precedent, chiefly New York.²⁴

The opinion added a point about the separation of powers within the federal government. The Brady Act, it said, "effectively transfers this responsibility," the President's duty to execute the laws, "to thousands of CLEOs in the 50 States, who are left to implement the program without meaningful Presidential control." The opinion also raised a point about money. The federal government's power, it said, "would be augmented immeasurably" if it could press the police officers of the 50 States into its service at no cost to itself.²⁴ The holding was broad: "The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program."²⁴ The Court rejected a case-by-case balancing approach: "no case-by-case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary."²⁴

The phrase "or those of their political subdivisions" matters for a lesson about county sheriffs. Printz protects the sheriff of a county as well as the governor. Two points about its limits. The Court held the background-check command unconstitutional and declined to decide whether the rest of the interim scheme, including the dealers' duty to forward forms and wait five business days, survived, because no dealer or purchaser was before it. And the provisions that would have had officers give a buyer written reasons for a finding of ineligibility "require no action whatsoever" of sheriffs who are not voluntary participants, so as to them those provisions were simply inoperative.²⁴

Justice O'Connor concurred to say the holding "does not spell the end of the objectives of the Brady Act": "States and chief law enforcement officers may voluntarily continue to participate in the federal program," and Congress may continue the program "on a contractual basis with the States," for example by conditioning federal funds. Justice Thomas, joining the opinion in full, wrote separately that the Tenth Amendment "affirms the undeniable notion that under our Constitution, the Federal Government is one of enumerated, hence limited, powers," and wrote that a "colorable argument" might exist that the Brady scheme conflicted with the Second Amendment if it protected an individual right. The vote was 5 to 4. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, writing that "there is not a clause, sentence, or paragraph in the entire text of the Constitution of the United States that supports the proposition that a local police officer can ignore a command contained in a statute enacted by Congress pursuant to an express delegation of power enumerated in Article I." Justices Souter and Breyer filed separate dissents.²⁴

Murphy v. NCAA (2018): Orders to Legislatures, Including Orders to Do Nothing

The Court's most recent full treatment of the anti-commandeering rule arose from sports betting. Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 1992. It made it unlawful for a state or its subdivisions "to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact" a betting scheme based on competitive sporting events, and it let the head of the federal Justice Department and sports organizations sue to stop violations. Nevada's casinos and a few other places were grandfathered, and New Jersey was offered a one-year window to legalize betting in Atlantic City that it did not use.²⁵

By 2011 New Jersey had changed course. After voters approved a state constitutional amendment, the legislature passed a 2012 law authorizing sports betting at casinos and racetracks, and the NCAA and three major professional leagues sued to stop it under the federal statute. New Jersey argued that the federal statute violated the anticommandeering principle by preventing the state from repealing its own prohibitions. The lower courts disagreed, and the Court denied review in 2014. The New Jersey Legislature then wrote a different law, passed in 2014, that repealed the state's bans on sports wagering at certain places by persons 21 or older, and that declared it was not to be read as authorizing sports betting. The leagues sued again, and this time the Court took the case.²⁵

Justice Alito wrote for the Court in an opinion announced on May 14, 2018, after argument on December 4, 2017. He started from the rule of New York and Printz and described it as "simple and basic." The anticommandeering doctrine, he wrote, "simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority": Congress lacks power to issue direct orders to the governments of the states. The opinion gave three reasons for the rule. It protects liberty by keeping a balance of power between the national and state governments. It promotes political accountability, because voters can tell which government to credit or blame for a policy. And it keeps Congress from shifting the costs of regulation to the states.²⁵²⁰

New Jersey's argument turned on a distinction. New York and Printz involved commands to do something: enact a regulatory program, take title to waste, run background checks. The federal statute here told New Jersey not to do something, which was to authorize betting. The leagues and the United States said a prohibition is different from an affirmative command. The Court called the distinction "empty." The opinion reasoned that the provision "unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do," and that "the basic principle that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures applies in either event." It supplied an image: "It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals."²⁵

The Court also rejected the argument that the provision was a form of preemption under the Supremacy Clause. As the Constitution Annotated summarizes the opinion, a valid preemption provision must represent an exercise of a power Congress holds and must regulate private actors and not the states. The anti-authorization provision did neither, because it did not confer federal rights on private parties or impose restrictions on them, and so it was simply a command to state legislatures. The Court then concluded that the rest of the statute could not be severed and struck PASPA in its entirety.²⁰²⁵

Alito's opinion for the Court was joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Kagan and Gorsuch, and by Justice Breyer as to all but Part VI-B. Justice Thomas also filed a concurrence. Justice Breyer concurred in part and dissented in part, and Justice Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justice Sotomayor and, in part, by Justice Breyer.²⁵ The part of the opinion that held the anti-authorization provision unconstitutional drew the votes of seven Justices, and the severability discussion in Part VI-B drew six.

Where the rule stops

Two later developments show the edges of the rule. In Reno v. Condon (decided January 12, 2000, before Murphy), a unanimous Court upheld the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994, which limits states' disclosure of personal information in motor vehicle records. The Constitution Annotated reports that the Court found the law did "not require the States in their sovereign capacities to regulate their own citizens" but "regulate[d] the States as the owners of databases," and that it applied to private resellers of the same information as well.²⁶²⁰ Murphy carried the same idea: the rule "does not apply when Congress evenhandedly regulates activity in which both States and private actors engage."²⁰

The Constitution Annotated also reports that in Haaland v. Brackeen (June 15, 2023) the Court rejected a commandeering challenge to provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act, writing that "legislation that applies evenhandedly to state and private actors does not typically implicate the Tenth Amendment," and that Congress can require state courts to enforce federal law. This lesson did not read the Brackeen opinion and relies on the Annotated Constitution's summary for it.²⁰

Spending, Coercion and the Limits of Conditions

Because the anti-commandeering rule bars orders to states, Congress achieves much of its policy in areas of state responsibility through conditions on money. New York and Printz both recognized the spending power as an alternative to commandeering.²⁰ The question is how far a condition may go before it becomes a command in disguise.

South Dakota v. Dole (decided June 23, 1987) is the standard case on one side. Congress had directed the Secretary of Transportation to withhold 5 percent of certain federal highway funds from states that allowed people under 21 to buy alcohol. South Dakota, which let people 19 and older buy beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol, challenged the condition. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for a 7 to 2 Court, with Justices Brennan and O'Connor dissenting, that the condition was valid, and he called the offered inducement "relatively mild encouragement to the States." The enactment of such laws, he wrote, "remains the prerogative of the States not merely in theory but in fact." The Court said that losing "5% of the funds otherwise obtainable under specified highway grant programs" was not so coercive as to pass the point at which "pressure turns into compulsion."²⁷

The Court found the line in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (decided June 28, 2012). The Affordable Care Act would have required states to expand Medicaid coverage to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level and let the Secretary of Health and Human Services withhold all of a state's Medicaid payments if the state did not comply. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that federal funds had become "over 10 percent of most States' total revenue," that the threatened loss was "economic dragooning," and that the inducement was "much more than 'relatively mild encouragement'": "it is a gun to the head." The expansion, he said, "accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree," because it transformed a program for particular categories of needy people into one covering the nonelderly population below a set income line.²⁸

The Chief Justice was joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan on the coercion holding, and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito dissented but agreed the expansion was unconstitutionally coercive, which made seven Justices who found coercion. Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor disagreed. The remedy was narrow. The Court held that the Secretary could not apply the withdrawal provision to take away existing Medicaid funds for refusing the expansion, and it left the rest of the Act in place. "Nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the Affordable Care Act to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that States accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use."²⁸²⁰ The Constitution Annotated describes NFIB as the only case in which the Court has invalidated an exercise of the spending power on this ground, as of its most recent update.²⁰

The line between permissible conditions and impermissible commands runs, in these opinions, through whether the state has a genuine choice and whether it could have anticipated the condition when it joined the program. Dole's 5 percent and NFIB's more than 10 percent of state revenue are the two data points this lesson found, and no formula connects them.

Who May Raise the Amendment: Bond, Shelby and Arizona

Three more decisions show where the reserved-powers idea reaches beyond the anti-commandeering cases.

Bond v. United States (decided June 16, 2011) asked whether a private person may argue that a federal statute invades the powers reserved to the states. Carol Anne Bond was indicted under 18 U.S.C. section 229, a statute implementing a chemical weapons treaty, after she put caustic chemicals on objects that a woman who had been her friend was likely to touch, and the woman suffered a minor burn. She argued that the statute exceeded Congress's constitutional authority. The Third Circuit held she had no standing, because no state was a party. Justice Kennedy wrote for a unanimous Court that she did have standing: "The individual, in a proper case, can assert injury from governmental action taken in excess of the authority that federalism defines." He added that federalism "secures the freedom of the individual" and that "the individual liberty secured by federalism is not simply derivative of the rights of the States." Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Breyer, concurred, writing that whether the Tenth Amendment "is regarded as simply a 'truism,' or whether it has independent force of its own, the result here is the same." The decision gave the merits of her challenge back to the lower court.²⁹

Shelby County v. Holder (decided June 25, 2013) introduced a principle about the states' relation to each other. The Court, 5 to 4 in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, said the Tenth Amendment "reserves to the States all powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government," that the states retain "broad autonomy" in structuring their governments, and that there is a "fundamental principle of equal sovereignty" among the states, which the Court called highly pertinent in assessing disparate treatment of states. The opinion applied it to the Voting Rights Act's coverage formula. The Constitution Annotated notes that the Court's cases leave unclear whether equal sovereignty rests on the Tenth Amendment or on some other provision.³⁰³¹

Arizona v. United States (decided June 25, 2012) shows the line between reserved powers and federal supremacy in immigration. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor, with Justice Kagan taking no part, held that three sections of Arizona's S.B. 1070 were preempted: section 3, on state registration crimes, section 5(C), on penalties for unauthorized work, and section 6, on warrantless arrests. It declined to hold section 2(B), which requires state officers in some circumstances to make a reasonable attempt to verify a person's immigration status with the federal government, preempted at that stage. "Consultation between federal and state officials is an important feature of the immigration system," the Court said, and "the federal scheme thus leaves room for a policy requiring state officials to contact ICE as a routine matter." It also said that it was "not clear at this stage" that section 2(B) would require officers to delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify status, and that doing so "would raise constitutional concerns."³²

The case is relevant to the Tenth Amendment because the Court treated immigration regulation as a federal field and treated the states' role as one of cooperation within it. The cooperation was permissible, as the opinion described it, because Congress had "encouraged the sharing of information about possible immigration violations." Arizona is the closest precedent this lesson found for an Idaho law on cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and the Idaho section below returns to it.³²

Myths and Misreadings

Landmark Cases

The table lists the decisions discussed above in date order. Citations are to the U.S. Reports where this lesson confirmed one in a source it opened, and otherwise give the docket number. Vote counts are those in the opinion headings or syllabi this lesson read, and where a count is the lesson's own arithmetic the footnote says so.

Idaho: Sheriffs, the 2025 Immigration Act and the Federal-State Line

Idaho in the Union

Article I of the Idaho Constitution begins with statements that bear on reserved powers. Section 2 says: "All political power is inherent in the people." Section 3 says: "The state of Idaho is an inseparable part of the American Union, and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land."³³³⁴ The first sentence echoes the "or to the people" in the Tenth Amendment. The second means that the reserved powers of the state are exercised inside the federal structure, and the supremacy that McCulloch relied on is part of Idaho's own constitution.

The sheriff in the Idaho Constitution and Code

Article XVIII, section 6 of the Idaho Constitution directs the Legislature, "by general and uniform laws," to provide for the election of county commissioners and "for the election of a sheriff, a county assessor, a county coroner and a county treasurer" every four years in each county. It says the sheriff and certain other county officers "shall be empowered by the county commissioners to appoint such deputies and clerical assistants as the business of their office may require."³⁵ The office is created and defined by state law, and its holder answers to the county's voters.

The statute that lists a sheriff's duties is Idaho Code section 31-2202. It begins with a statement of state policy: "the primary duty of enforcing all penal provisions and statutes of the state is vested with the sheriff of each county," then lists duties that include keeping the peace, arresting people who commit public offenses and taking them before a magistrate, preventing riots, taking charge of the county jail and its prisoners, serving process, keeping a record of reported stolen cars and investigating missing children cases. The list has 15 numbered duties. Every one is a duty under Idaho law, and none is a duty to a federal agency, although one of them, item 13(e), tells the sheriff to act in a manner consistent with a federal wildlife regulation.³⁶

Section 31-2227 states the same policy and gives it enforcement. The "primary duty of enforcing all the penal provisions of any and all statutes of this state" rests with the sheriff and the county prosecutor in each county. If a county's officers need help they are to call on the Idaho state police. When the governor decides that any peace officer "refuses to perform any duty enjoined upon him by the penal statutes of this state," the governor may direct the state's top legal officer to begin removal proceedings. And when the governor decides that the state's penal laws "are not being enforced as written" in a county, the governor may direct the director of the state police to act independently of the sheriff and the county prosecutor, with the state's top legal officer taking over the prosecutor's duties in that case. The history line for the section shows enactment in 1951 and amendments through 2014.³⁷

What Printz means for an Idaho sheriff

Read together, these provisions describe what Printz assumes about sheriffs. The sheriff is a state-law officer, elected by county voters, with duties set by the Legislature. The state has tools to direct the sheriff on state matters, including the governor's power in section 31-2227. A federal command to the sheriff to run a federal program runs through none of those channels. The Court held that Congress "may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program."²⁴ Section 31-2202 does not list federal enforcement among a sheriff's duties, and Printz says Congress cannot add it by command. Congress can offer money or other incentives, and a sheriff or county may take part voluntarily, as Justice O'Connor's concurrence noted.²⁴

The protection runs against Congress. It does not stop a state from directing its own officers. Idaho's Legislature and governor can tell a sheriff what to do about state matters, and the Legislature can enact a law that tells sheriffs how to respond to a federal request. That is what the 2025 statute does, as described below. This lesson found no Idaho or federal court decision applying Printz to an Idaho statute or to an Idaho sheriff, so this paragraph states how the rule's logic applies, and it does not report a ruling.

Idaho Code section 18-3315A: the 2010 firearms provision

Idaho has enacted a statute that rests on the reserved-powers idea and goes beyond non-cooperation. Section 18-3315A, added in 2010, declares that a personal firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition "manufactured commercially or privately in Idaho and that remains within the borders of Idaho is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce." It states that the Legislature declares "those items have not traveled in interstate commerce." It excludes several categories, among them firearms that cannot be carried and used by one person, firearms with a bore diameter over one and one-half inches that use smokeless powder, certain explosive ammunition and firearms that fire two or more rounds with one activation of the trigger. It requires the words "Made in Idaho" to be stamped on a central metallic part of a firearm manufactured or sold under the section.³⁸

The section is a legislative declaration about the reach of the Commerce Clause. It does not by its own force decide that question. The anti-commandeering cases protect a state's refusal to help enforce federal law, and they do not hold that a state may declare federal law inapplicable. As the Shelby County syllabus puts it, "State legislation may not contravene federal law."³⁰ Whether a given federal firearms law reaches a gun made and kept in Idaho depends on how courts read the commerce power. Lopez held that possessing a gun in a school zone is "in no sense an economic activity" and Darby upheld Congress's power over production for interstate commerce, and neither case decides the question for a homemade firearm.²²² This lesson did not read the cases usually discussed on the intrastate aggregation question, and it found no court decision on section 18-3315A. Nothing here says how the question would be decided.

The Immigration Cooperation and Enforcement Act (2025)

The Idaho statute with the closest connection to Printz is the Immigration Cooperation and Enforcement Act, House Bill 83 of 2025, now chapter 90 of title 18 of the Idaho Code. The House passed it 61 to 9 on February 10, 2025, the Senate passed it as amended 29 to 6 on March 11, the House concurred 61 to 9 on March 19, and the Governor signed it on March 27, 2025 (Session Laws chapter 183, effective on that date).³⁹ The sponsors' revised statement of purpose said the bill was meant to support federal efforts to identify, detain and remove people it describes as dangerous illegal aliens, and it described a $250,000 supplemental appropriation request for fiscal year 2025 with a $1 million request for fiscal year 2026. The statement carries a notice that it was prepared by a proponent and is not an expression of legislative intent.⁴⁰

For this lesson the relevant provision is section 18-9005, "Cooperation with federal authorities." It has four subsections. The first says law enforcement officials "shall be authorized to send, receive, and maintain information relating to the immigration status of illegal aliens for public safety purposes," to the extent federal law authorizes it. The second says law enforcement officials "shall not be prohibited from entering into" agreements with federal agencies to enforce federal immigration laws, "including section 287(g)" of the 1996 federal act. The third says no law enforcement official "shall be prohibited from utilizing available federal resources." The fourth is the one that speaks to custodial officers. Where a custodial authority has a person in custody who is subject to an immigration detainer or federal warrant, it "shall comply with, honor, and fulfill any reasonable request made in the immigration detainer or warrant as long as any term of state-ordered confinement has been satisfied and it does not impose undue burden, risk, or expense."⁴¹

Section 18-9002 defines the terms. "Custodial authority" includes "county sheriffs, city chiefs of police, and any of their subordinates with the power to confine or detain a person under color of law." An "immigration detainer" is a notice from federal immigration authorities "requesting that a custodial authority or law enforcement official maintain temporary custody" of a person. "Law enforcement official" includes state, county and local officers and prosecutors.⁴²

The Tenth Amendment analysis separates three kinds of provision. Subsections (1) through (3) are permissions. They remove state-law obstacles to voluntary cooperation and leave the choice with the officer or agency. Nothing in them is a federal command, so Printz does not apply, and the Court has described consultation between state and federal officials as "an important feature of the immigration system" in Arizona.³² Subsection (4) is a command, but a command from the Idaho Legislature to Idaho's own officers, and the anti-commandeering rule restricts Congress. The federal document it refers to is itself a "request," in the statute's own definition. And subsection (4) has its own limits: it applies after any state-ordered confinement is satisfied, covers only a "reasonable request" and yields when compliance would impose "undue burden, risk, or expense."⁴¹⁴²

The chapter's other provisions create state crimes. Section 18-9003, as amended in 2026, defines an illegal-entry offense for an adult alien who enters or is present in the state after entering the United States in violation of two provisions of federal law, and section 18-9004 defines illegal reentry after removal. Both can be enforced "only when a person is detained or investigated for suspected commission of an independent crime." Section 18-9006 makes it a felony to knowingly transport a "dangerous illegal alien" into the state.⁴³⁴⁴⁴⁵ The question those sections raise is preemption, the kind the Court addressed in Arizona, where it held that the federal government's power over immigration and alien status is broad and found three Arizona provisions preempted.³² It is a different question from the one the Tenth Amendment raises, and this lesson did not find a court ruling on any section of chapter 90, so it takes no position on how such a ruling would come out.

The 2026 Legislature amended three sections of the chapter, 18-9002, 18-9003 and 18-9004, in Senate Bill 1260, effective July 1, 2026 (Session Laws chapter 165). The Senate passed it 29 to 6 on March 9, 2026, and the House passed it 59 to 9 with two absent on March 23. The sponsors' statement of purpose said the bill "provides clarity" to the illegal-entry provisions and would not add duties to state or local law enforcement.⁴⁶

Three 2026 bills the Legislature's list did not show as law

Three 2026 bills bear directly on county and local officers. The Legislature's bill list as this lesson retrieved it showed none of the three as law.⁴⁷

House Bill 659 would have required local and county law enforcement agencies to apply for a memorandum of agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under section 287(g) and to disclose publicly if they could not enter one. It passed the House 41 to 27 with two absent on March 6, 2026 and was referred to the Senate State Affairs Committee, where the list showed it.⁴⁸ Senate Bill 1441, introduced on March 26, 2026 with a similar purpose, was reported out of committee to the Senate's 14th Order on March 31.⁴⁹ Both bills would have been state-law commands to county officers, which is the pattern the anti-commandeering rule leaves open to a state. Their sponsors' statements of purpose said that they would have no fiscal impact.⁴⁸⁴⁹

Senate Bill 1349 would have created a "trigger" framework for machine guns that takes effect only if federal restrictions are repealed, invalidated or no longer enforced, and it would bar state and local agencies and employees from using funds or personnel to help enforce a federal restriction after such a trigger event. It was introduced March 2, 2026, referred to the Senate State Affairs Committee on March 3, and the list showed it there. The bill is a proposed example of the non-cooperation side of the anti-commandeering rule, with the limit that it applied only after a trigger event, and that its text said it would not prohibit cooperation relating to conduct that remains unlawful.⁵⁰ Because the bill has not been enacted, it does not state Idaho law.

The Idaho Committee on Federalism

Idaho Code section 67-9301, added in 2019, created a ten-member legislative Committee on Federalism, five senators and five representatives, appointed "based on knowledge of and experience with the United States and Idaho constitutions." It is directed to "monitor and review federal acts, laws, and regulations that may impact the jurisdiction, governance, and sovereignty of the state of Idaho" and to evaluate "whether said federal acts, laws, and regulations are authorized by the United States constitution or if they violate the principles of federalism." It must meet at least twice a year, and it reports findings and recommendations to the Legislature.⁵¹

What this lesson could not confirm

This lesson could not search the web for news and case law from 2025 and 2026, so it cannot say whether a court has ruled on any provision of chapter 90 of title 18, on section 18-3315A, or on any application of Printz or Murphy to an Idaho statute or officer. It also could not confirm whether federal courts have decided other Tenth Amendment cases since Murphy in 2018 beyond Brackeen, which it knows only from the Constitution Annotated, whether Idaho bills 659 and 1441 or 1349 received later action after the pages it read, or whether Idaho's Legislature has since enacted anything on the subject. The Idaho Legislature's site says statutes are updated each July 1 after a session, and this lesson read the codified sections as they stood on the site in October 2026.³⁷

Where This Shows Up for Officials, Reporters and Citizens

The sheriff and the federal request

The sheriff of the invented Corvane County receives a letter from a federal agency asking the jail to hold a man for 48 hours after his state sentence ends. A reporter covering the story should ask the first question the cases make central: is this a request, a command from a federal statute, or a command from the state? Printz forbids Congress to command the sheriff to run a federal program, and Idaho's statute tells custodial authorities to honor "reasonable" detainer requests once state confinement ends, with a limit for undue burden, risk or expense.²⁴⁴¹ The story should say which source of authority the sheriff cited and whether the jail acted under state law or voluntarily.

The grant with strings

The commissioners of the invented Brightwater County are offered a federal public-safety grant that requires the county to adopt a policy as a condition of the money. The questions from the spending cases are practical: how much of the county's budget is at stake, whether the county can decline and keep its existing federal funds, and whether the condition was in place when the county joined the program. Dole's 5 percent is the example of a condition the Court treated as a valid inducement, and NFIB's threat to existing funds that made up over 10 percent of most states' revenue is the example it treated as coercion.²⁷²⁸ A reporter should get the grant's terms and the county's budget figures before describing the condition as coercive or voluntary.

The bill with a declaration

A legislator in the invented state of Marrow drafts a bill declaring that goods made in the state and sold within it are "not subject to federal law." Staff and reporters should separate two questions. One is whether the state may refuse to use its own resources to help enforce a federal measure, which the anti-commandeering rule protects. The other is whether a state declaration can displace a valid federal law, and the Shelby County syllabus says "State legislation may not contravene federal law."³⁰ Idaho's section 18-3315A is an example of the second kind. A story should describe what the bill's text does, ask what constitutional power the sponsor says supports it and report whether any court has ruled.³⁸

The meeting speaker who cites the Tenth

At a meeting of the invented Pemberton Falls council, a speaker says the Tenth Amendment lets the city ignore a federal rule. The fair summary has two halves. The Supreme Court has held that Congress may not order a state or its officers to carry out a federal program, and that includes local officers such as sheriffs.²⁴ The Court has also held that valid federal laws that regulate private conduct, or that apply evenhandedly to states and private parties, bind everyone, and that state law yields to valid federal law.²⁰³⁰ A reporter should ask which of those the speaker means.

The classroom question about "expressly"

A civics volunteer asks a class why the Tenth Amendment says "not delegated" and not "not expressly delegated." The answer is in the Annals of Congress. Representative Tucker moved to add the word on August 18, 1789, Madison objected that "it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers," and the House voted 17 to 32 on August 21 not to add it. The word had been in Article II of the Articles of Confederation.¹⁴⁴

Related Modules

Related lessons: The Ninth Amendment (Module 23, retained rights, the companion to this lesson); Federalism and the States (Module 5); Article I: Congress (Module 2, the enumerated powers, the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause); Article VI: Supremacy (Module 15, why valid federal law prevails over conflicting state law); Article III: The Federal Courts (Module 4); Article VII: Ratification (Module 16, the ratification fight and the demands for amendments); The Second Amendment (Module 8, the right behind the Brady Act litigation); The Fourteenth Amendment (Module 28, enforcement power against the states); Amending the Constitution (Module 6); Reading the Constitution (Module 12); and, from the Articles of Confederation course, The Thirteen Articles, The Crisis Years and From Annapolis to Philadelphia.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• National Archives, The Bill of Rights: A Transcription (enrolled resolution of September 25, 1789)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 1: Articles of Confederation, article II
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 2: James Wilson, Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, December 4, 1787
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 3: Federal Farmer, No. 16
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 4: Federalist No. 45
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 5: North Carolina Ratifying Convention, proposed amendment
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 6: House of Representatives, August 18 and 21, 1789
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 7: St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries (1803)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 8: James Monroe, Views on Internal Improvements (1822)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 9: Joseph Story, Commentaries (1833)
• The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 8: New York ratification
• The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 9: Virginia proposed amendments
• The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 10: North Carolina proposed amendments
• The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 11: Madison's resolutions and the House proceedings of 1789
• Idaho Constitution, article I, section 2
• Idaho Constitution, article I, section 3
• Idaho Constitution, article XVIII, section 6 (county officers)
• Idaho Code 31-2202 (duties of sheriff)
• Idaho Code 31-2227 (enforcement of penal laws, primary responsibility)
• Idaho Code 18-3315A (prohibition of federal regulation of certain firearms)
• Idaho Code 18-9002 (Immigration Cooperation and Enforcement Act, definitions)
• Idaho Code 18-9003 (illegal entry)
• Idaho Code 18-9004 (illegal reentry)
• Idaho Code 18-9005 (cooperation with federal authorities)
• Idaho Code 18-9006 (trafficking a dangerous illegal alien)
• Idaho Code 67-9301 (Committee on Federalism)
• Idaho Legislature, 2025 House Bill 83 (bill page and vote history)
• Idaho Legislature, H0083 statement of purpose and fiscal note (revised)
• Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1260 (bill page and vote history)
• Idaho Legislature, S1260 statement of purpose and fiscal note
• Idaho Legislature, 2026 House Bill 659 (bill page and vote history)
• Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1441 (bill page)
• Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1349 (bill page)
• Idaho Legislature, S1349 bill text
• Idaho Legislature, 2026 legislation list and session law table

Opinions

• McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819)
• Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918)
• United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941), U.S. Reports volume 312 (GPO)
• National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976)
• Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985)
• South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)
• Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991)
• New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992)
• United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995)
• Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)
• Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000)
• United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
• Bond v. United States, 564 U.S. 211 (2011), U.S. Reports volume 564 (GPO)
• National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393 (2012)
• Arizona v. United States, No. 11-182 (2012)
• Shelby County v. Holder, No. 12-96 (2013)
• Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 16-476 (2018)

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• Constitution Annotated, Anti-Commandeering Doctrine (Amdt10.4.2)
• Constitution Annotated, Equal Sovereignty Doctrine
• Constitution Annotated, Historical Background on Tenth Amendment

Footnotes

1. National Archives, The Bill of Rights: A Transcription, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript. The Tenth Amendment text is quoted from the enrolled joint resolution of September 25, 1789, in which it appears as "Article the twelfth"; the page states that ten of the twelve proposed amendments were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791.
2. United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941) (Stone, J.), decided February 3, 1941, GPO U.S. Reports volume 312, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-312/pdf/USREPORTS-312-100.pdf. The "truism" passage, the statement of the amendment's purpose and the statement that Hammer was "overruled" are from the opinion text.
3. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), decided June 19, 1992 (O'Connor, J.), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/144. The statute, the three sets of incentives, the take-title holding, the quotations, the discussion of the Confederation (citing Amar and Hamilton), the votes of the Justices and the 6 to 3 count are from the opinion texts. The 6 to 3 count is this lesson's count of the Justices who joined the take-title holding, including those who dissented in part.
4. Articles of Confederation, art. II (1781), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 1, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs1.html. The 29-word clause is quoted from this text. The Tenth Amendment is 28 words by this lesson's count of the enrolled text.
5. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. 3, sections 1900-1901 (1833), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 9, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs9.html. The quotations about the Confederation's Congress being "crippled at every step," the word "expressly," the "residuary sovereignty" of the states and the people, and the phrase "foist into the text the word 'expressly'" are from this text.
6. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819) (Marshall, C.J.), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/17/316. The facts, counsel, quotations on the Confederation, the omission of "expressly," implied powers, the unanimity of the Court, and supremacy are from the opinion text. This lesson gives the term only as February Term 1819 and the argument dates as the text reports them.
7. James Wilson, speech in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, December 4, 1787, The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 2, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs2.html.
8. James Madison, The Federalist No. 45 (January 26, 1788), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 4, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs4.html. The date and the quoted passages on the federal powers (war, peace, negotiation, foreign commerce) and the state powers are from this text.
9. Federal Farmer, No. 16 (January 20, 1788), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 3, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs3.html. The passage recommending a general reservation "according to the mode adopted in the 2d art. of the confederation," with powers "not explicitly and expressly given up," and the passage calling a bill of rights useless in a government of enumerated power, are quoted from this text. This lesson read only the excerpt reproduced there.
10. New York Ratification of the Constitution (July 26, 1788), The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 8, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/bill_of_rightss8.html. The "clearly delegated" declaration is quoted from this document.
11. Virginia Ratifying Convention, Proposed Amendments (June 27, 1788), The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 9, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/bill_of_rightss9.html. The proposed item quoted ("each state in the Union shall respectively retain every power") is from this document.
12. North Carolina Ratifying Convention, Declaration of Rights and Other Amendments (August 1, 1788), The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 10, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/bill_of_rightss10.html, and Amendment X, Document 5, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs5.html. The "particularly given" language and the phrase "a solemn instrument, defining the extent of their authority" are quoted from these documents.
13. James Madison, resolutions in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789, The Founders' Constitution, Bill of Rights, Document 11 (Annals of Congress 1:424-50 and following), https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/bill_of_rightss11.html. The text of the eighth resolution, with its placement "immediately after article 6th," is quoted from this document. The Annals of Congress are not a verbatim record, and this lesson did not find a Senate record of the Tenth Amendment's wording.
14. House of Representatives, debates of August 18 and 21, 1789, The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 6, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs6.html. The motions by Mr. Tucker (whom the Annals list only as "Mr. Tucker"), Madison's and Sherman's objections, Carroll's addition of "or to the people," Gerry's recorded motion on August 21 (17 yeas, 32 nays) and Sherman's rewording are from this text. The Annals do not record a count on the August 18 motion, and they do not say why the 32 members voted as they did.
15. St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, appendix to Blackstone's Commentaries (1803), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 7, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs7.html. The quoted passages on reserved state powers and on property and criminal law are from this text.
16. James Monroe, Views of the President of the United States on the Subject of Internal Improvements (May 4, 1822), The Founders' Constitution, Amendment X, Document 8, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendXs8.html. The quoted passage on state laws, descents, contracts, private property, the administration of justice and the criminal code is from this text.
17. Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918), argued April 15, 1918 and decided June 3, 1918 (Day, J., for the Court; Holmes, J., dissenting, joined by McKenna, Brandeis and Clarke, JJ.), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/247/251. The facts, the Tenth Amendment passage and the 5 to 4 count are from the opinion text.
18. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976), decided June 24, 1976, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/426/833. The "traditional governmental functions" holding is from the opinion text. The majority of five is derived from the four named dissenters (Brennan, White, Marshall and Stevens, JJ.) and Justice Blackmun's concurrence, and this lesson counted it that way.
19. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985), argued March 19, 1984, reargued October 1, 1984, decided February 19, 1985, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/469/528. The facts, the overruling of National League of Cities, the quotation about the constitutional structure and the 5 to 4 count are from the opinion text. The passage from Justice Powell's dissent on the lesson of the Tenth Amendment, and Justice O'Connor's "sounds a retreat" and "in time again command the support of a majority" passages from her dissent, are quoted from the dissents.
20. Constitution Annotated, Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-10/anti-commandeering-doctrine. The characterization of the rule, the three rationales, the discussion of evenhanded regulation, the account of Brackeen (2023), the statement that NFIB is the only case invalidating a spending condition as coercive, and the quotation about retreat from Garcia are drawn from this page. This lesson did not read the Brackeen opinion.
21. Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991), decided June 20, 1991, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/501/452. The facts and the clear-statement passages are from the opinion text.
22. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), decided April 26, 1995, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/514/549. The holding, the "in no sense an economic activity" passage, the Justices who joined the Court's opinion and the Breyer dissent's joinders are from the opinion text.
23. United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), decided May 15, 2000, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/529/598. The 5 to 4 holding and the "police power" passage are from the opinion text.
24. Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997) (Scalia, J.), decided June 27, 1997, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/521/898. The statute, the sheriffs and their counties, the sources of the rule, the holding, the rejection of case-by-case balancing, the severability passage, the 5 to 4 count and the separate opinions of O'Connor, Thomas, Stevens, Souter and Breyer, JJ., are from the opinion texts. The "augmented immeasurably" point is paraphrased in the lesson, and the lesson quotes the shorter phrase. The opinion describes a second plaintiff, Richard Mack, as a sheriff without naming his county in the passage this lesson read.
25. Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 16-476 (U.S. May 14, 2018) (Alito, J.), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-476. The statute (PASPA), the 2014 New Jersey law, the three rationales, the "empty" distinction, the image of federal officers in legislative chambers, the severability holding and the lineup of Justices are from the text this lesson opened. The Cornell text appeared partial, and this lesson also relied on the Constitution Annotated summary. The U.S. Reports citation was not confirmed in a page this lesson opened.
26. Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000), decided January 12, 2000, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/528/141. The holding, the quoted passages on regulating the states as owners of databases and the description of private resellers are from the opinion text.
27. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), decided June 23, 1987, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/483/203. The 5 percent condition, the 7 to 2 count, the age-21 requirement and the "pressure turns into compulsion" passage are from the opinion text.
28. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393 (U.S. June 28, 2012), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-393. The "shift in kind, not merely degree" passage, the statement that nothing precludes conditions on new funds and the count of seven Justices on the Medicaid holding are from the opinion texts. The U.S. Reports citation was not confirmed in a page this lesson opened.
29. Bond v. United States, 564 U.S. 211 (2011), decided June 16, 2011, GPO U.S. Reports volume 564, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-564/pdf/USREPORTS-564-211.pdf, and https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/09-1227. The holding and the "truism" passage in the Court's opinion are from the opinion text.
30. Shelby County v. Holder, No. 12-96 (U.S. June 25, 2013), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-96. The syllabus statement "State legislation may not contravene federal law," the equal-sovereignty passage and the 5 to 4 count are from the text. The U.S. Reports citation was not confirmed in a page this lesson opened.
31. Constitution Annotated, Equal Sovereignty Doctrine, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-10/equal-sovereignty-doctrine. The statement that the Court's cases leave the textual basis unclear is drawn from this page.
32. Arizona v. United States, No. 11-182 (U.S. June 25, 2012), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182. The holding on the three preempted provisions, the section 2(B) discussion, the "important feature" passage and the recusal of Justice Kagan are from the opinion texts. The U.S. Reports citation was not confirmed in a page this lesson opened.
33. Idaho Constitution, article I, section 2, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect2/.
34. Idaho Constitution, article I, section 3, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect3/.
35. Idaho Constitution, article XVIII, section 6, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtXVIII/Sect6/.
36. Idaho Code section 31-2202, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title31/T31CH22/SECT31-2202/. The count of 15 numbered duties and the reference to a federal wildlife regulation in item 13(e) are from the codified text as retrieved in October 2026.
37. Idaho Code section 31-2227, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title31/T31CH22/SECT31-2227/. The history line is as shown on the site in October 2026. The site states that statutes are updated each July 1 following the legislative session.
38. Idaho Code section 18-3315A, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH33/SECT18-3315A/. The description of the section is from the codified text. This lesson did not find a court ruling on the section.
39. Idaho Legislature, 2025 House Bill 83, bill page and vote history, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/H0083/. The votes, dates and the session-law chapter number are as shown on the page. This lesson cross-checked the bill's text against the codified sections cited above.
40. Idaho Legislature, H0083 statement of purpose and fiscal note, https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/H0083SOP.pdf. The statement describes the bill's purpose in terms of "dangerous illegal aliens" and carries the notice that it was prepared by a proponent.
41. Idaho Code section 18-9005, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH90/SECT18-9005/. Subsection (4) is quoted from the codified text as retrieved in October 2026. This lesson found no court ruling on chapter 90 of title 18.
42. Idaho Code section 18-9002, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH90/SECT18-9002/. The definitions of "immigration detainer or warrant" and "law enforcement official" are quoted from the codified text.
43. Idaho Code section 18-9003, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH90/SECT18-9003/.
44. Idaho Code section 18-9004, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH90/SECT18-9004/.
45. Idaho Code section 18-9006, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title18/T18CH90/SECT18-9006/.
46. Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1260, bill page, vote history and statement of purpose, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/S1260/ and https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/S1260SOP.pdf. The votes and dates are as shown on the page.
47. Idaho Legislature, 2026 legislation list, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/. The list as this lesson retrieved it in October 2026 showed none of H0659, S1441 or S1349 as law.
48. Idaho Legislature, 2026 House Bill 659, bill page, vote history and statement of purpose, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/H0659/. The status described is as shown on the Legislature's pages in October 2026. This lesson could not confirm any later action.
49. Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1441, bill page, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/S1441/. The status described is as shown on the Legislature's pages in October 2026. This lesson could not confirm any later action.
50. Idaho Legislature, 2026 Senate Bill 1349, bill page and bill text, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/S1349/ and https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2026/legislation/S1349.pdf. The bill was introduced March 2, 2026. This lesson could not confirm any later action.
51. Idaho Code section 67-9301, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title67/T67CH93/SECT67-9301/. The description of the Committee on Federalism, including the twice-a-year meeting and the reporting duty, is from the codified text.