Throwback Thursday: South Dakota v Dole (1987)

Congress enacted a law to get states to raise their drinking age to 21, withholding some federal highway funds from states that wouldn’t. South Dakota’s drinking age was 19, so they sued. In South Dakota v Dole (1987), SCOTUS laid out 5 limits on Congress’ power to attach strings on money given to states. 1st: Congress’ spending “must be in pursuit of ‘the general welfare.'” 2nd: Congress must place conditions on the funds “unambiguously.” (States need to know the conditions before accepting “federal” money.) 3rd: the conditions must relate to “the federal interest” for which the spending program was established. 4th: “[o]ther constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to conditional grant of funds.” 5th: a condition becomes unconstitutional when “the financial inducement offered by Congress” coerces the states to take certain action. In cases decided after Dole, SCOTUS primarily focused on the 5th factor – whether a spending condition was coercive. WHY THIS IS WRONG: https://wp.me/pecX6i-4i0!