State powers were not originally listed in the U.S. Constitution. “The consensus among the framers was that states would retain any powers not prohibited by the Constitution or delegated to the national government” (American Government, Ch. 3.1). When the time to ratify the Constitution arrived, however, many states sought the addition of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that explicitly guaranteed the states certain rights. Thus, the Tenth Amendment was proposed, ratified, and included at the end of the Bill of Rights.
The RESERVATION CLAUSE in the Tenth Amendment states that “[t]he 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.” In other words, states may exercise RESERVED POWERS that are not explicitly and exclusively granted to the federal government and are not denied to state governments.
Traditionally, reserved powers have included:
- regulating intrastate commerce (i.e., commerce within a state’s borders)
- conducting elections (including national elections, state elections, and local elections)
- providing for the public health, safety, and welfare of its citizens
- maintaining militias (i.e., National Guard)
- ratifying amendments to the U.S. Constitution
“Some of the states’ reserved powers are no longer exclusively within state domain, however” (American Government, Ch. 3.1). For example, the federal government has taken on a role in providing for the public health, safety, and welfare of its citizens through the executive departments and agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, and the Department of Education and through enacting programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pell Grants, etc.