Echoing Nietzsche’s famous proclamation, several states are now declaring, in effect, “Federalism is dead.” For Americans, whose nation was founded on a belief in separate spheres of government power, this pronouncement may appear equally blasphemous. Unlike Nietzsche, though, these states believe in resurrection and hope to revive the once-sacred concept that is becoming increasingly obsolete. In legislatures across the country, state representatives have introduced bills demanding that the federal government abide by a frequently overlooked Constitutional provision: the Tenth Amendment.

By Kate Rykken

Over the next five weeks, 10 prisoners face the death penalty in Texas. Their crimes include the murders of an eleven-year-old girl, a sleeping elderly man, a middle-aged widow, and the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl. Regardless of where these crimes were committed, they are heinous and incomprehensible. Yet, a person committing these same crimes in New York would instead spend the rest of his life in jail. Texas sentences and executes its prisoners at a rate that far outpaces every other state in the United States, while New York has outlawed the death penalty.