INTERSTATE COOPERATION
Compacts and Administrative Agreements
SECOND EDITION
Joseph F. Zimmerman
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
2012 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zimmerman, Joseph Francis, 1928-
Interstate cooperation : compacts and administrative agreements / Joseph F. Zimmerman. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4235-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Interstate agreementsUnited States. I. Title.
KF4618.Z53 2012
342.73'042dc23
2011027893
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Peggy with Love for Her Support
PREFACE
H armonious interstate relations in general are a central feature of successful federal systems that have constitutions allocating substantial powers to member states. Conflicts, however, arise in these systems and can be resolved by means of interstate cooperation that in the United States may assume the form of interstate compacts, formal interstate administrative agreements, and reciprocity statutes. The alternatives in the United States to these methods of conflict resolution are adjudication by the United States Supreme Court if one or more states bring an original jurisdiction suit against another state(s), or a congressional preemption statute removing regulatory powers from states. Although the national legislature can not resolve a boundary dispute, Congress may grant its consent to an interstate compact establishing the boundary line(s) between two states.
Preemption statutes date to 1790, but had a relatively minor effect on the state-reserved powers until the mid-l960s when Congress increasingly removed all or certain regulatory powers from states and local governments in a number of fields. The question of whether Congress should employ its preemption powers to solve a nationwide problem is highly political and typically involves important interest groups. Complete preemption of state regulatory authority in a given field has the advantage of establishing uniform policies throughout the nation, but limits the ability of individual states to innovate new problem solving approaches that may be adopted by sister states. In a number of instances, an interstate compact and/or formal interstate administrative agreement could be employed to achieve the goals of a preemption statute.
The politics of interstate relations generally has been neglected by most political scientists in recent decades, although such relations affect directly thousand of business firms and millions of citizens. This book attempts to rectify in part the neglect by examining the use of cooperative instrumentscompacts and formal and informal administrative agreementsto address interstate problems, construct and operate physical facilities, regulate activities of business firms and individuals, and provide legal rights and services on a multistate basis by means of joint programs and reciprocity. The law of interstate relations is subjected to detailed analysis to promote an understanding of the legal basis for interstate cooperation and challenges to such cooperation.
A unique feature of this volume is the chapter on formal and informal interstate administrative cooperation whose importance can not be overestimated as the economic union and the political union established by the United States Constitution is dependent in large measure upon sister states acting in unison to solve major interstate problems. This volume also is unique in including the first listing, with legal citations, of all interstate compacts that have received the consent of Congressand the first listing, with legal citations, of all federal-interstate compacts.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
C ollecting information on interstate cooperation was a major task because of the relative lack of published current data and information. Numerous state and federal government officers, compact administrators, associations of state administrators, and individuals supplied information in response to my requests. In addition, a significant number of state government officers, compact officers, and association officers granted interviews to the author, and provided copies of materials that otherwise would have been unobtainable. The cooperation of these officers is reflective of their professionalism and their desires to improve the functioning of the federal system. Any errors of fact or misinterpretations, of course, are solely my responsibility.
A special debt of gratitude is owed to Addie Napolitano for her excellent preparation of the manuscript for publication.
CHAPTER ONE
INTERSTATE COMITY
A n imperium in imperio (an empire within an empire) is an apt descriptor of a federal system as sovereign political powers are divided between a national government and constituent state governments. This power division automatically produces national-state relations and interstate relations characterized by competition, cooperation, and/or conflict. This book focuses on interstate comity in the United States that in origin predates the emergence of the federal system and is traceable to the Declaration of Independence of 1776 that necessitated interstate cooperation, similar to an international alliance, for the successful prosecution of the War of Independence.
The literature on national-state relations in the United States is vast in contrast to the scarcity of interstate relations literature. The first comprehensive book on such relations was not published until 1996. This fact is surprising since boundary and trade disputes between sister states were major factors contributing to calls for amendment of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, and ultimately led to the convening of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that drafted the U.S. Constitution as a replacement of the articles.
Political scientists generally had relatively little interest in interstate relations in the post-1940 period until the turn of the twenty-first century. The lack of interest is difficult to explain when one considers the wide variety of major economic, political, and social matters involved and the importance of daily interstate cooperative activities. The declining scholarly attention paid to such relations is apparent upon a perusal of three special issues of The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science devoted to federalism and intergovernmental relations. The 1940 issue contained six articles on interstate relations. The number of such articles declined to two in the 1974 issue, and to none in the 1990 issue. Fortunately, there has been increasing scholarly attention to such relations commencing in 1996.
The advantages of a federal system, according to its proponents, are avoidance of overcentralization of political power, national uniformity in policy areas where needed, states controlling their internal affairs and experimenting with new policies that lead to adoption of successful ones by sister states and/or the national legislature, greater opportunities for citizen participation in the policy making and implementation processes, and ability of states to remedy an internal problem without waiting for the national legislature to develop a solution.
