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Legislative initiatives and referendums allow citizens to put a piece of legislation to a vote, or directly pass legislation through a citizen vote. Because these actions allow citizens to directly enact or prevent legislation, they are commonly referred to as "direct democracy." Each municipality may have different regulations regarding how an initiative or referendum is created, put on a ballot, and voted on. This ability for municipalities and states or provinces to have different laws and policies is known as "federalism." The topics addressed by initiatives and referendums in the United States have included amending a constitution, removing a political figure from office, increasing taxes, legalizing same-sex marriage, and banning the use of disposable plastic shopping bags. A referendum addressing a dramatic change, such as altering the constitution or asking for state status, is called a "plebiscite."

The United States federal government oversees all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and US territories. It is distinct from, and in many cases superior to, the governments of each state. The federal government is divided into three branches, each with its own powers, duties, and organizational structure. The three branches are the executive, which includes the president and numerous regulatory agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Food and Drug Administration; the judicial, which includes the Supreme Court and the federal court system; and the legislative, essentially Congress, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The federal government has its primary location in Washington, DC.

The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was passed by the US Congress less than one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice issued its final report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. Following the presidential commission’s suggestion that crime is a national, as well as a state and local problem, Congress authorized the establishment of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), a new federal agency described in Title I of the Omnibus Act.

The Farmer Refuted was Alexander Hamilton’s second published work and was a follow-up to his A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, from the Calumnies of their Enemies (1774), which was a response to open letters written by Loyalist A. W. Farmer, whose real name was Samuel Seabury. Seabury’s next letter continued his pro-British arguments, and Hamilton responded with The Farmer Refuted. The debate centered on whether the colonists should fight British rule or submit to it. It also raised the question of what kind of government the colonists should establish should they achieve independence. In his response, Hamilton articulates his vision of a strong central government.

In 1965, Governor James A. Rhodes of Ohio requested an interstate enforcement conference for representatives of all the states within the Lake Erie watershed (Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) and the federal government. Lake Erie had become so polluted that public indignation over its condition had reached Rhodes at the statehouse. A Cleveland automobile dealer named David Blaushild had instituted a petition campaign called Save Lake Erie that resulted in more than one million signatures. In April, 1965, Blaushild turned the petitions over to Governor Rhodes. In turn, Rhodes sent them to John W. Gardner, U.S. secretary of health, education, and welfare (HEW), with a request for the interstate enforcement conference. The conference was held in Cleveland, Ohio, in August, 1965.

Even before the US Constitution went into effect, there were serious debates about what type of political system it would create and what type of union had already been formed. Part of the problem was multiple and shifting word usage. Those advocating the Constitution’s ratification identified themselves as Federalists, described the new structures as partly federal, and claimed those structures were necessary to preserve the federal union. At the same time, members of the founding generation identified federalism as a confederation of sovereign states, distinct from a consolidated or national government. Relying on these distinctions, James Madison in The Federalist (1788), No. 39, argued the proposed Constitution was neither purely federal nor entirely national but instead included features of each. In 1789, James Madison proposed twelve Amendments to the First Congress, and ten of these eventually created the Bill of Rights.

Significance: The Supreme Court’s decisions involving the Tenth Amendment were not always consistent. At times, the amendment was criticized as redundant and, at others, reaffirmed as a valuable part of the Constitution.

The 2020 United States federal government data breach was a cyberattack on the United States that was most likely initiated by the government of the Russian Federation. The data breach lasted for months during 2020 and affected numerous government agencies. The effects of the breach were not known at the time, and experts suggested that the United States might never know the full extent of the hack. The hackers used a popular network software to infiltrate and take information from networks used by the US government and private businesses, mostly inside the United States.

In the spring of 2019 the Washington Post asked every major Democrat running for president in 2020 whether they supported statehood for Washington, DC, and every candidate answered in the affirmative. However, a June 2019 Gallup poll asked people across the United States whether they opposed or supported statehood for Washington, DC, and a large majority—64 percent—opposed statehood. Many in Washington argue that this divide highlights the ignorance of most of the nation regarding the political plight of the city’s permanent residents, caught between the federal government and a nebulous state of home rule.

Even before the went into effect, there were serious debates about what type of political system it would create and what type of union had already been formed. Part of the problem was multiple and shifting word usages. Those advocating the Constitution’s ratification identified themselves as Federalists, described the new structures as partly federal, and claimed those structures were necessary to preserve the federal union. At the same time, members of the founding generation identified federalism with a confederation of sovereign states, as distinct from a consolidated or national government. Relying on these distinctions, in (1788), No. 39, argued that the proposed Constitution was neither purely federal nor entirely national but instead included features of each.

Until 1920, wildlife management was a state-level activity. In 1913, however, the federal Migratory Bird Act was passed to protect migratory game and insectivorous birds from excessive hunting pressure. Lower federal courts found the act unconstitutional. In 1916, Congress concluded a treaty with Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds, and in 1918, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to implement the provisions of the treaty. In 1920, this act withstood a constitutional challenge brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Holland. The Court decided that the treaty power of the federal government, unlike its legislative power, is not constrained by the constitutional rights of the states. The decision destroyed the doctrine of state ownership of wildlife and set the stage for further assertions of federal supremacy.

The Virginia Plan was a proposal for a new form of federal government presented by the Virginia delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Virginia Plan called for a strong central government divided into separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Most importantly, it proposed a bicameral (two-house) legislature that would allow for representation based on the population of each state. Although favored by the larger states, the Virginia Plan enjoyed little support from the less populous states that stood to have reduced legislative representation under its terms. These states instead supported an alternative proposal called the New Jersey Plan, which called for equal representation for all states regardless of population size. While neither of these plans was ultimately adopted outright, the Virginia Plan introduced many of the key concepts that would eventually come to define the structure of the American federal government as established by the US Constitution.

On May 17, 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were illegal. The court issued a second ruling on the case one year later, ordering local school boards to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” One of the first and most widely publicized tests of the new federal position on school segregation came in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The United States is a federal republic made up of fifty states, of which forty-eight form a large continuous land block between Canada and Mexico. In the United States, a state is a political and geographic subdivision of the federated American nation. Article Four of the U.S. Constitution outlines the relationship between each state, and between the states and the federal government. The doctrine of state’s rights asserts that states have authority in matters not delegated to the federal government. Marginalized groups have often appealed to state legislatures as a major step to combat animosity from others to improve their lives when members of minority groups faced artificially manufactured prejudice and challenges from the dominant white society.

U.S. state-federal relations is the relationship between the federal, or national, government of the United States and the individual state governments that comprise it. When drafting the Constitution, the Founding Fathers established a system of government called federalism , which further defines this relationship. Federalism's goal is to balance power among various levels of government that control the same territory.

The United States federal budget specifies how the federal government will spend its money. The federal budget manages receipts—which include government income gained through taxes, fines, duties, and other programs—and debts the government owes. The federal budget contains all government spending for the coming fiscal year, which begins each year on October 1 and ends the following September 30. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives must agree upon the budget. Once agreement has been reached, the budget must be signed into law by the president. Creating the federal budget is a complex process, and it is not always accomplished.