Do states have any still have any rights outside the courts and elections?
Basically the federal government can use money to control the state.
For example the federal government wants a drinking age of 21. They take the states money and say you don’t get it back unless the drinking age is 21.
Same with speed limits.
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Of course. States impact the average citizen more so than the federal government in all ways, and I personally think states have allowed the fed more influence than they should have, but the US Constitution still stands.
That constitution only delegates so much power to the Federal government the rest belongs to the states.
Education, Gun control and Marijuana are the current biggest ones, but the 10th amendment is still important for the American legal structure.
And states can refuse to support federal enforcement in the state, making it very difficult for the feds to do anything.
You’re right that there are mechanisms for the federal government to bully the states with money and get its way. They could say, for example, “Teach XYZ in your schools or we’ll withhold a huge amount of education money from you.”
But one-third of the federal government is Congress, and each member of Congress is elected in either a state, or a district that’s even smaller than a state. So if the people in Moose Kneecap, Kentucky, don’t like their kids being taught XYZ, they’re free to elect an outsider who promises to fight for an opt-out in the Teach XYZ For Freedom Act. If this happens in enough districts, it backfires against the feds and diminishes their power. Or, if that doesn’t work, the governor of Kentucky could bite the bullet, refuse the money, and go on without it.
Still another problem is that these kind of bully tactics sometimes get struck down in court. Trump tried to do this quite a bit, and after years of “We’ll yank your money!” being used as a threat, we all found out it’s legally more difficult to carry out that threat than many people feared or hoped.
Everybody’s got a gun to everybody else’s head. It can be counterproductive.
Yes, states still retain more power than most people seem to expect. Not as much as intended but still a great deal. Most crimes that a person could commit are state level crimes, not federal. Because most day to day laws are set and defined by the states.
For your average citizen it is their state and local governments that dictate what they can and cannot do.
So the federal drinking age is 21 but many states have conditions such as parent supervision, drinking on private property, etc. that allow for drinking under 21.
The states do have individual rights yes.
What you deal with in every day life is generally something handled by the individual state. The federal government handles much, much more sweeping legislation like guaranteeing personal liberty, etc.
The [National Minimum Drinking Age Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act) only forces states to setup a minimum when purchasing alcohol, it does not actually ban those under the minimum to consume it. While several states have a total ban, others have exceptions. That said, the Federal government itself does not have minimum age limit on purchasing alcohol, which is why military bases overseas typically follow the local laws of the host country on things like that.
Take the states’ money away? No, that never happens. You’ve been misinformed.
The Federal Government can make certain funding contingent on policies, like the drinking age, but it isn’t the states money.
Clearly they do. Just look to weed legalization, abortion and gun control for an example. The feds have two constitutional obligations, foreign affairs and control of interstate commerce. They have gained control in other areas by granting or withholding tax dollars. A prime example is the dept of education withholding tax dollars if schools do not comply with their “suggested” agenda
Yes states rights actually exist. Take your example, the federal government couldn’t do that. What the federal government did was withhold some of the states highway funding unless the state passed a law making the drinking age 21. But, the federal government can’t put coercive conditions on their spending.
So yes they exist, it’s just a lot more limited than certain people want them to be.
The state governments have been puppet governments since the civil war, when they lost all effective sovereignty and agency. Any power they presently possess is at the pleasure of the federal government.