Most American law remains state law despite federal growth
Evidence
At the end of the twentieth century, just as in the beginning, most lawsuits were state lawsuits; most law was state law. To get a divorce, you go to a state court; you go there too to collect damages for whiplash injury, or to ask for a zoning variance. Rapists, drunk drivers, murderers, and embezzlers are tried in state courts. Ordinary commercial law is state law. So is basic property law. … Thus, the states, in the early twenty-first century, still made a great deal of difference. Indeed, they taxed more, spent more, regulated more, and controlled more than was true in 1900—by orders of magnitude. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3761
Categorization
- XREF: This framings of state-sovereignty competence pairs directly with earlier chapters on state competition as sellers of laws (ch59) and the corporate-flight dynamic that blocked progressive labor legislation. — connects to: Unwritten decisional common law remains the underlying framework of American state legal order — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 2; American regulation moved historically from local to state to federal control — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2547; Free interstate mobility turned American states into competing sellers of laws — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2374 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- National state regulatory power persists, so no capitalist epochal break has occurred
#corroborates(0.82) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 215 - American regulation moved historically from local to state to federal control
#qualifies(0.78) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2547 - Free interstate mobility turned American states into competing sellers of laws
#expands(0.70) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2374