Laboratories of democracy is a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis ( ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to ...

in '' New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann'' to describe how "a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."'' New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann'', Brandeis was an

associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is a Justice (title), justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the J ...

from 1916 to 1939. This concept explains how within the federal framework, there exists a system of state autonomy where state and local governments act as social laboratories, where laws and policies are created and tested at the state level of the democratic system, in a manner similar (in theory, at least) to the

scientific method The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and ...

. An example today would be the legalization of marijuana in Colorado despite the fact that it is illegal federally. The Tenth Amendment of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

provides that "all 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." This is a basis for the ''laboratories of democracy'' concept, because the Tenth Amendment assigns most day-to-day governance responsibilities, including general police power, to the state and local governments. Because there are 50 semi-autonomous states, different policies can be enacted and tested at the state level without directly affecting the entire country. As a result, a diverse patchwork of state-level government practices is created. If any one or more of those policies are successful, they can be expanded to the national level by acts of Congress. For example, the Massachusetts

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

established a health care reform law in 2006 that became the model for the subsequent

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

at the national level in 2010, or the various concealed carry state reciprocity agreements that motivated the subsequent proposed federal Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.

References

External links

State and Local Governments: Laboratories of Democracy
America.gov, 16 December 2007

CommonDreams.org, 31 May 2004
Laboratories of Democracy: Anatomy of a Metaphor
AEI Federalist Outlook, Michael Greve, March 2001 Federalism in the United States Democracy {{US-law-stub

See also

References

External links