Understanding of the Legal Framework in the United States
Public safety officials have a fundamental responsibility to develop a comprehensive understanding of the legal framework that is in place in the United States in order to fulfill their mission and facilitate their responses to threats to public safety. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the scholarly literature to explain the concept of federalism and police powers as well as describing a fact-based scenario related to a quarantine in response to a pandemic situation. Finally, the paper provides a summary of the findings that emerged from the research concerning these issues in the conclusion.
Federalism
The term federalism is used to refer to the manner in which power is divided and shared between the national and state governments in the United States. According to information about federalism provided by the U.S. Library of Congress, By allocating power among state and federal governments, the Framers sought to establish a unified national government of limited powers while maintaining a distinct sphere of autonomy in which state governments could exercise a general police power (Federalism and the Constitution, 2023, para. 4).
The concept of police power is examined further in the section following below, but the constitutional basis for American federalism and police power is contained in the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states in part that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people. The Tenth Amendment, together with other constitutional provisions including the Supremacy Clause in Article VI that states that federal law is superior to state law and the Commerce Clause contained in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, which assigns the U.S. Congress with the power to enact legislation concerning issues involving interstate commerce, establish the legal framework for the balance of power between the federal government and the state governments (Federalism and the Constitution, 2023).
These constitutional principles and provisions assign the federal and state governments with the specific powers to initiate and administer responses to public safety issues. Some salient examples of federalism that have specific applicability to the field of public safety include law enforcement responsibilities where the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency are tasked with the enforcement of federal laws while local police officers and sheriffs are generally responsible for the enforcement of local and state laws (Vil et al., 2022).
In addition, another relevant example of federalism is the different responsibilities for emergency management responses that exist between state and federal governments. For instance, on the one hand, the federal governments Federal Emergency Management Agency has primary responsibilities for the provision of resources and assistance in response to natural and anthropogenic disasters. On the other hand, local and state governments...
…the legal factors and limitations that would need to be taken into account by local government officials when considering a quarantine include ensuring that the governmental entity possesses the authority to do so. In addition, other legal factors would include the need to ensure that any steps taken to implement and administer a quarantine do not inordinately affect already vulnerable populations such as the elderly and disabled or impoverished ethnic minorities that may lack the financial resources they need to weather a lengthy lockdown (Methven, 2022).Conclusion
The concept of federalism as applied to the United States refers to the separation of various legal powers between the federal, state and local governments. Although federal law supersedes local and state laws, the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that any rights that are not specifically assigned to the federal government are reserved to the states and the American people. The research also showed that police powers are also included in the Tenth Amendment which authorize local and state governments to create and maintain a law enforcement authority to preserve order and protect the interests of American citizens and the federal governments exercise of broad regulatory power. Finally, the fact-based scenario related to a quarantine in response to a pandemic situation showed that there are some factors that must be considered, including most especially the need to ensure the legal authority to implement a quarantine and to avoid measures that will adversely affect…
References
Black’s Law Dictionary. (1991). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
Federalism and the Constitution. (2023). U.S. Library of Congress Constitution Annotated. Retrieved from https:// constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro.7-3/ALDE_00000032/.
Legal Authorities for Isolation and Quarantine. (2023). U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulations quarantineisolation.html.
McGrane, S. (2010). Katrina, Federalism, and Military Law Enforcement: A New Exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. Michigan Law Review, 108(7), 1309–1340.
Methven, E. (2022). “There Is No Need for Anyone to Be Concerned”: The Discursive Legitimation of Coercive Police Powers during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Revista de Llengua i Dret, 77, 54–70.
Olshansky, R. B., & Johnson, L. A. (2014). The Evolution of the Federal Role in Supporting Community Recovery After U.S. Disasters. Journal of the American Planning Association, 80(4), 293–304.
Police Powers. (2023). Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/police_powers#:~:text=Police%20powers%20are%20the%20fundamental,term%20eludes%20an%20exact%20definition.
Vilá, O., Smith, G., Cutts, B., Gyawali, S., & Bhattarai, S. (2022). Equity in FEMA hazard mitigation assistance programs: The role of state hazard mitigation officers. Environmental Science & Policy, 136, 632–641.
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