President Trump speaks with white house governors last week. He challenged the governor of Maine Janet Mills about his state policy on transgender athlete students, which prompted him to answer: “go to court”.
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Many plans of President Trump are not possible without the help of state heads – who have the power to activate or block the objectives of the White House.
Taking Trump’s expulsion plan, which Florida Governor Ron Desantis says would be the “biggest mass expulsion program in American history”.
“It is not possible to be carried out unless states like Florida are actively working to facilitate the federal operation,” said the Republican governor recently when Announce an agreement with federal officials For Florida Highway Patrol to apply immigration.
Not just a question of labor, it is also a question of authority. The federal government is powerful, but the States have jurisdiction over cities and counties, police, schools and health services. Think a few years ago when governors took their states in different directions on firmness and vaccine requirements.
Unlike Desantis support last week Public dispute with Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills to find out if his condition will adopt Trump’s policy on transgender students in sport. “You see the court,” the governor told the president at a meeting of the White House with governors.
The United States has been created with the idea that states have power, except in the areas stated by the American Constitution. Local officials, such as police and sheriffs, are largely governed by local and state laws, not federal mandates.
And then there is politics. For the moment, Trump and his supporters have a political momentum, saying that the electoral victory approved their program. The States led by Democrats have challenged some of the policies before the courts. But a large part of this will increase or come across what the governors and the legislatures of the States do. Here is an overview of some of the game problems.
States may order the police to support deportations in a way that federal officials cannot
The federal government is responsible for protecting American borders, but that does not mean that it can force local police to join.
“The federal government is in fact very limited to force states and localities to do anything,” said Rick Su, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. But state legislators have the power to involve the police and sheriffs in the application of immigration – such as the detention of people for immigration violations.
To allow Florida, like several states already, made it State crime so that someone is in Florida without legal status in the United States. This means that local police can charge people an offense during the first offense and a crime after that.
The soldiers of the State abolished a demonstrator during a special session of the Legislative Assembly of Tennessee last month, while she was advancing a bill on immigration.
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The legislators of Tennessee, exhorted by the Republican Governor Bill Lee, have made a crime for local elected officials to vote for sanctuary policies, which are prohibited in the state. In Alabama, A proposal Make a crime to protect or feed someone without status of legal immigration.
And the States led by Democrats have used their power to oppose the deportations that go back to the first Trump administration. Cities have adopted sanctuary policies and state legislators may prohibit the police from holding people on federal immigration charges.
But they cannot interfere with American immigration and personalized application, or ice, the exercise of its federal functions. And politics here can be difficult for Democrats at the moment. National polls show a large part of the public supports the idea of deportations And “sanctuaries” policies tend to be unpopular.
Trump wants to revise American schools, but it is largely in the local hands
Asset signed an order encouraging the use of tax money To pay tuition fees for children who frequent private schools – the idea widely called good schoolchildren or, by supporters, the choice of school.
“What the administration is reporting is that they want to bring together education, freedom and choice closer and these dollars closer to each student,” explains Lee Schalk, vice-president of the American policy Legislative Exchange Council, who advises legislators on laws to limit the government and promote “freedom of education”.
But a large part of Trump’s plan is based on states. The legislators, mainly in the legislatures led by the Republicans, have already brought a form of good or SchooL choice for many states. The Governor of Texas Greg Abbott pushes the legislators to start A good program that could send $ 1 billion One year in private schools.
Many states led by Democrats have blocked the programs of good and the idea has generally lost when put to voters Directly, among the worries of the Democrats and Republicans that it will drain the money from public schools.
One thing that Trump could do is persuade the congress to adopt tax loss for groups that can then subsidize tuition fees. A plan for its last administration would have cost about $ 5 billion in tax revenue but would have provided tuition fees Hundreds of thousands of students (About one million of the country’s 50 million schoolchildren are currently obtaining good).
Trump has also threatened with financing discounts To “end the radical indoctrination” in schools. But the governments of the states and premises control the school programs and they raise Over 80% of their own money.
In the meantime, some Trump allies call for Closing of the American Department of Education. This would probably lead to less surveillance in the few areas where the federal government has power – – in particular to prevent discrimination – and give heads of state even more control over schools.
Trump obtained support on crime concerns, but the police are largely local
Crime increased during the cocovated pandemic and most crimes have fallen into many areas since. But it was a recurring theme throughout the Trump campaign, which criticized Biden’s White House and local officials for criminal justice policies which, according to them, were too soft.
“Now, the pendulum goes back to normal. Thank God. Because people, especially in blue cities, have realized, look, that’s not why we voted,” explains Charles “Cully” Stimson, Senior legal scholarship holder at the Heritage Foundation, the research group that compiled the 2025 project plan for the revision of the government written in part by people who later joined the Trump administration.
But, as Stimson notes, the vast majority of crimes are pursued at local level by prosecutors in the counties and courts of 50 states. And state legislators have established the rules.
The states led by both parties – and their voters in referendums – have already damaged crime laws. California Druck penalties for drug crimes And display flight. The States led by the Republicans have sought means of Perform more executions. While some states and localities have eliminated the requirements in cash on certain crimes, the legislatures of other states have sought means to tighten the bond requirements.
Abortion rights, vaccines, fluoride is decided at the level of the state and the city
President Trump made credit for the United States Supreme Court’s decision to end the federal law in 2022 due to his choice of judges during his first mandate. Reproduction rights are a brutal example of a problem that belongs to state legislators, as evidenced by the patchwork of constantly evolving abortion laws through the country.
Going further, states are now reinterpreting their powers on other medical treatments, whether they can prohibit drugs used for abortions for transgender care. Nicole Huberfeld, professor of law at the law faculty of the University of Boston and co -director of the school program on reproductive justice, says that she follows judicial affairs “where states claim to have the power to decide what types of medical care should be lawful and the federalty and the federal government does not do so.
After Trump signed an executive decree threatening to reduce federal funds for hospitals that provide transgender care, democratic prosecutors of generals new York And California Hospitals have said that they were still forced by the law of the State to continue treatment.
Meanwhile, public health issues such as vaccination requirements for public schoolchildren and workplaces are at stake in the country’s legislatures.
The current practice of putting fluoride in water to improve dental health – something criticized by the new secretary for health and social services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – is controlled by states and cities. Several legislatures of the States are considering bills to prohibit its use.