Al. V. Hodges Supreme Court Case Study

In the majority opinion written on the Obergefell et al. v. Hodges Supreme Court case on June 26, 2015, the court decided that states were required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as well as recognize such licenses from other states on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision held wide ramifications for policy implementation throughout the nation, especially in those states that had not already legalized same-sex marriage. This unilateral action by the federal government created a complicated responsibility for state and local governments to integrate the broad new legal proceedings effectively. The problems that arise in the local governments following such federal decisions challenge the nation’s federalist system,

Hodges decision. Ideally, “federalism promotes choice, competition, participation, experimentation, and the diffusion of power,” (Gerken 2010, 6) but the most powerful role it plays in this issue is in setting up theoretical federal supremacy while empowering local political actors. The United States Constitution declares that between state and federal law, the latter takes precedence, as recently affirmed by the United States v. Arizona (2012) Supreme Court case. Despite the supremacy clause, federalism in fact gives states relative autonomy, especially in the case of marriage equality, on which states were left to decide individually before the Obergefell decision. For example, in May 2012, North Carolina approved Amendment One to the state constitution, stipulating that the only valid marriage is between one man and one woman, which Obergefell now calls into question (Perry 2014, 376). Such contradictions between federal and state law caused numerous difficulties in implementing the legalization of same-sex marriage, with some states denying the Supreme Court’s authority as justification for not upholding the decision (Corriher 2015). Moreover, federalism allows for power to be given to the “servants,” as Gerken explains, as local political actors receive the power to shape policy instead of just reacting to it from the outside (2010, 39). Since these actors are integrated into the political system, their ability to affect policy outcome is much greater than if they were attempting to enact change as political outsiders. In particular, it is the actions and reactions of servants, or street-level bureaucrats, that shape the implementation of same-sex marriage policy at the same time that they are