Defending the capacity to govern: The intergovernmental lobby and the United States Supreme Court

The State and Local Legal Center was created to be "Federalism's Legal Defense Fund," representing the interests of subnational governments at the bar of the United States Supreme Court.; The shared interest of subnational governments in America is to preserve their capacity to govern: their ability to control their fiscal destiny and to preserve their ability to regulate the health, safety, and welfare of their populations. This shared interest is in effect their autonomy as governments, the ability of elected officials to choose the price and quantity of public goods in accords with the wishes of their constituents.; State and local governments were long regarded as the worst litigators to regularly appear before the Justices of the Supreme Court. After decades of suggestions and failed efforts, the intergovernmental lobby groups---the professional organizations of governors, mayors, and county officials---formed the State and Local Legal Center in direct response to the challenges to their fiscal and regulatory autonomy initiated by the national government in the 1970s. The SLLC represents the intergovernmental lobby in cases dealing with fiscal issues, regulatory preemption, sovereign immunity, and the general powers constitutionally reserved to subnational governments. The goal was to prevent the broadening of constitutionally imposed responsibilities that would directly impair their fiscal and regulatory capabilities.; The Legal Center's presence has coincided with what many characterize as a "federalism revolution" at the Court led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. While this jurisprudential shift is a product of many variables, by a number of measures the Center has succeeded in its first fifteen years defending the capacity to govern of the intergovernmental lobby at the United States Supreme Court.