The Federal government has the power to apply consent decrees to specific police departments when those departments are found to have used force excessively, per the 1994 Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act[0]. This essentially opens police departments up to lawsuits if they exhibit a pattern of bad behavior. In fact, this law explicitly requires DOJ to issue an annual report on "the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers", although they haven’t.

> The fact that voters fail to hold their lower-level governments to account does not mean that all power (and failure) should be centralized.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_La...

The legislature and the executive derive their powers from the constitution, not legislation. This is demonstrated by the abundance of unconstitutional legislation.

Just wanna to add that Trump's DOJ isn't pursuing consent decree. In fact, the consent decree in Chicago was nearly finalized when Trump took office, and Sessions dropped it.

So they have the power to do it, but they definitely have the power not to do it at all.

> Why should everything be federalized?

Generally most policies are good or bad regardless of where you live. If a policy is good it should be wnavted nationwide so to benifit all citizens.

More specifically this has to do with government oversight. When local and state government overstep and violate people's rights and act in an authoritarian fashion the federal government should step in and fix things

> There is no article in the constitution which mandates (or permits) federal supervision of state powers (such as the police power).

You're incorrect. The Supreme Court has found that federal supervision of police powers is constitutional so it is. As it should be.

> The fact that voters fail to hold their lower-level governments to account does not mean that all power (and failure) should be centralized.

The fact that voters fail hold their lower-level governments to account and in fact may be unable or don't wish to is an incredibly powerful argument for the need of a centralized solution. The same now as during the civil rights era

The federal government is responsible for enforcing citizens’ civil rights when states can’t, won’t or don’t.

You're begging the question here; you need to explain your reasoning as to how and why your beliefs are true, rather than simply asserting them.

It’s not a belief, it’s a fact. And it’s part and parcel to the basic system of checks and balances underlying the US Federal and State Governments outlined in the Constitution. I had assumed it was common knowledge but I’m happy to walk you through it:

The United States Constitution guarantees a certain minimum level of civil rights. Each state’s Constitution may set forth a higher, but not lower, bar for civil rights. (California, for example, cannot amend the state Constitution to allow slavery or to prevent people with orange hair from voting. Well they could but the Federal Government would step in to stop the amendment from being enforced...)

Who is responsible for enforcing the Constitution? The Federal and State governments. So when a State government is the entity violating the Constitution the Federal government is responsible. It happens all the time and in myriad ways.

The executive branch (President, DOJ, various Federal agencies like the EEOC, etc.) can intervene if enforcement is at issue - usually with a lawsuit (for example, when a state violates voting rights) and rarely with force (like when states refused to carry out school desegregation following Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II). Likewise when the Federal government is infringing civil rights States Attorneys General will bring suit against the Federal Government just the same.

Congress, as the legislative branch, can also pass laws under the authority of the Commerce Clause to articulate a minimum national standard for specific civil rights like housing, employment, and education. I can’t post an advertisement for a job opening with the qualification “WHITE WOMEN ONLY” and the State of New York can’t either. States must abide the same way you or I are bound to follow federal law and the consequence of non-compliance is the same: the Department of Justice will come knocking to enforce the Civil Rights Act.

Finally, the Judicial Branch has oversight of state judiciary enforcement of civil rights. If Massachusetts arrests me without cause and a Massachusetts judge sentences me to prison without a trial I can appeal to a federal court that would then order Massachusetts to charge me or release me as the Constitution requires.

Our entire system is intended to allow the Federal and State Governments and the people to seek assistance and oversight to ensure the rights we are guaranteed are not infringed.

First of all, rights aren't "enforced". They're assumed given, and sometimes enumerated in law. Enforcement against violators is largely a discretionary matter of limited resources.

Semantics. You’re right that the usual term in this context would be to “uphold” civil rights but the word enforce means to compel compliance and that is very much an accurate description of the process.

Edit: The DOJ Civil Rights Division uses the word “enforce” right on their homepage: https://www.justice.gov/crt

Federal supervision of state powers, while not explicitly outlined in the constitution, has been developing based on the commerce and supremacy clauses since the Civil War. We do not currently live in a strict constructionist country, and frankly that type of government is significantly flawed. Madison correctly pointed this out during the Constitutional Convention, and while his negative was not put in, it was later taken up by the Supreme Court as judicial review.

I would argue that the death knell for the state's rights reading of the Constitution was the Civil War. It's fairly clear that the development of the government post-war, especially illustrated by the punishments levied against the southern states, created a national government rather than a federation of allied parties.

Consent decrees are definitely an instance where the federal government is supervising the state, but the fact that they are doing something does not ipso facto mean that they should be doing it. This whole thread is about the differences between what governments are doing and what they should be doing.

I would argue that incorporation was the beginning of the death knell of states' rights, followed by the dramatic expansion of the administrative state in the early 1900s.

> Consent decrees are definitely an instance where the federal government is supervising the state, but the fact that they are doing something does not ipso facto mean that they should be doing it. This whole thread is about the differences between what governments are doing and what they should be doing.

The fact that they needed to supervise them because not enough was being done to change the cops behavior is a strong argument that the federal government should be doing it

> I would argue that incorporation was the beginning of the death knell of states' rights

People have rights. States which are government do not have rights. The idea of states rights is a ridiculous one that was frequently used to try to justify lack of federal oversight and the "right" to oppress people's rights.

As for incorporation it's one of the best actions the supreme court has taken. As a libertarian you should be happy the court said that states can no longer violate people's constitutional rights

Right. There needs to be less centralization, not more. Perhaps Chicago should be it's own state, or at least an autonomous district.