Congress and the Reconstruction of Foreign Affairs Federalism

Michigan Law Review Volume 115 Issue 1 Article 2 2016 Congress and the Reconstruction of Foreign Affairs Federalism Ryan Baasch United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash University of Virgina School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, and the Legislation Commons Recommended Citation Ryan Baasch & Saikrishna B. Prakash, Congress and the Reconstruction of Foreign Affairs Federalism, 115 MICH. L. REV. 47 (2016). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol115/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact . CONGRESS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS FEDERALISM Ryan Baasch* & Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash** Abstract Though the Constitution conspicuously bars some state involvement in foreign affairs, the states clearly retain some authority in foreign affairs. Correctly supposing that state participation may unnecessarily complicate or embarrass our nation’s foreign relations, the Supreme Court has embraced aggressive preemption doctrines that sporadically oust the states from discrete areas in foreign affairs. These doctrines are unprincipled, supply little guidance, and generate capricious results. Fortunately, there is a better way. While the Constitution permits the states a limited and continuing role, it never goes so far as guaranteeing them any foreign affairs authority. Furthermore, the Constitution authorizes Congress to enact laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution federal powers. We believe that Congress can use this authority to adopt preemption mechanisms that reflect its view of the optimal role of states in international affairs. When it comes to policing state involvement in foreign affairs, Congress, rather than the courts, ought to be in the driver’s seat. Critically, Congress can proactively police the states, meaning that it need not wait for state mischief before enacting legislation. To give a sense of the possible and to alter the terms of a debate focused on judicial policing of the states, we recommend several novel mechanisms of preempting or deterring state intervention in foreign affairs and suggest categories of state law that ought to trigger these mechanisms. The precise mix is for Congress to consider based on its own sense of the vices and virtues of state forays in international affairs and of our existing foreign affairs federalism. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 I. Cacophonous Foreign Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A. The Need for One Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 B. Addressing the One Voice Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 II. Haphazard Judicial Preemption of the Cacophony . . . . . . . 62 A. Dormant Foreign Commerce Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 B. Dormant Foreign Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 C. Executive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 D. Preemption via Statutes and Treaties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 III. Three Principles of Foreign Affairs Federalism . . . . . . . . . . 72 * Law Clerk to Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, 2015–16. The authors thank John Harrison for helpful conversations and Mary Miller and Jonathan Backer for rather helpful comments. ** James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Prakash would like to thank the University of Virginia for summer research support and the excellent law librarians of the University of Virginia. 47 48 Michigan Law Review [Vol. 115:47 A. The Retained Foreign Relations Powers of the States . . . . . . . . . 75 B. The Constitution Does Not Safeguard the Retained Foreign Relations Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 C. Congressional Power to Preempt in Foreign Affairs . . . . . . . . . . 80 1. Historical and Doctrinal Support for this Power . . . . . . . 85 2. Considering Counterarguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 IV. A Superior Preemption Regime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 A. Federal Preemptive Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 1. Judicial Preemption Based on Congressional Statutory Bans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 2. State Department Preclearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 3. State Department Suspensive Veto Coupled with Congressional Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 4. Judicial Enforcement of Civil and Criminal Sanctions for States and State Officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 B. State Triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 1. State Laws that Facially Distinguish Among Nations and Nationals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 2. State Laws that Discriminate Based on Foreign Law . . . 99 3. Laws that Distinguish Based on Foreign Activity . . . . . . 100 4. Any State Law that Disrupts the Federal Conduct of Foreign Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 5. Conduct and Speech by State Officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 “[I]f all the discontented people in this country are to be suffered to tamper and negotiate with foreign Powers, it would lead to the most serious consequences.”1 Introduction Imagine that the president invites a divisive Middle Eastern leader to the United States for talks. An American mayor passionately disagrees with this decision and interjects in a fantastic way: the meddlesome mayor unceremoniously ejects the foreigner from a local event, branding him a terrorist and murderer. The mayor, lacking any diplomatic pedigree and unaccountable to the nation, has severely undercut the nation’s conduct of foreign policy. This all seems farfetched. Yet it is no law school hypothetical. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani once ousted Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat from a Lincoln Center concert, claiming that Arafat was a murderer (...truncated)