483 U.S. 203 (1987)
“Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States’ drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly.”
“When Congress appropriates money to build a highway, it is entitled to insist that the highway be a safe one. But it is not entitled to insist as a condition of the use of highway funds that the State impose or change regulations in other areas of the State’s social and economic life because of an attenuated or tangential relationship to highway use or safety.”
Visiting Professor, Georgetown University Law Center and Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice
Associate Professor, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University
Dole involved the question whether the federal government may accomplish indirectly through its power to tax and spend what it otherwise could not accomplish directly through regulation because such a regulation would be beyond its enumerated powers. Dole was decided in the 1980s and reflects the increasing nationalization of the economy as the country grew and needs for national regulation became more acute.
Petitioner South Dakota permits persons 19 years of age or older to purchase beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol. In 1984 Congress enacted 23 U.S.C. § 158, which directs the Secretary of Transportation to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds otherwise allocable from States “in which the purchase or public possession . . . of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful.” . . .
Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States’ drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly.
The Constitution empowers Congress to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. Incident to this power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds . . . . [O]bjectives not thought to be within Article I’s “enumerated legislative fields” may nevertheless be attained through the use of the spending power and the conditional grant of federal funds.
The spending power is of course not unlimited, but is instead subject to several general restrictions articulated in our cases. The first of these limitations is derived from the language of the Constitution itself: the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of “the general welfare.” In considering whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve general public purposes, courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Congress. . . . [O]ur cases have suggested . . . that conditions on federal grants might be illegitimate if they are unrelated “to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs.” . . .
We can readily conclude that the provision is designed to serve the general welfare . . . . Congress found that the differing drinking ages in the States created particular incentives for young persons to combine their desire to drink with their ability to drive, and that this interstate problem required a national solution. The means it chose to address this dangerous situation were reasonably calculated to advance the general welfare. . . . Indeed, the condition imposed by Congress is directly related to one of the main purposes for which highway funds are expended—safe interstate travel. This goal of the interstate highway system had been frustrated by varying drinking ages among the States. . . .
Our decisions have recognized that in some circumstances the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which “pressure turns into compulsion.” Here, however, Congress has directed only that a State desiring to establish a minimum drinking age lower than 21 lose a relatively small percentage of certain federal highway funds. . . .
The Court today upholds the National Minimum Drinking Age Amendment ... as a valid exercise of the spending power conferred by Article I, § 8. But [it] is not a condition on spending reasonably related to the expenditure of federal funds and cannot be justified on that ground. Rather, it is an attempt to regulate the sale of liquor, an attempt that lies outside Congress’ power to regulate commerce . . . .
I agree with the Court that Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds to further “the federal interest in particular national projects or programs.” . . . But the Court’s application of the requirement that the condition imposed be reasonably related to the purpose for which the funds are expended is cursory and unconvincing. We have repeatedly said that Congress may condition grants under the spending power only in ways reasonably related to the purpose of the federal program. In my view, establishment of a minimum drinking age of 21 is not sufficiently related to interstate highway construction to justify so conditioning funds appropriated for that purpose. . . .
When Congress appropriates money to build a highway, it is entitled to insist that the highway be a safe one. But it is not entitled to insist as a condition of the use of highway funds that the State impose or change regulations in other areas of the State’s social and economic life because of an attenuated or tangential relationship to highway use or safety. Indeed, if the rule were otherwise, the Congress could effectively regulate almost any area of a State’s social, political, or economic life on the theory that use of the interstate transportation system is somehow enhanced. . . .
If the spending power is to be limited only by Congress’ notion of the general welfare, the reality, given the vast financial resources of the Federal Government, is that the Spending Clause gives “power to the Congress to tear down the barriers, to invade the states’ jurisdiction, and to become a parliament of the whole people, subject to no restrictions save such as are self-imposed.” This, of course, . . . was not the Framers’ plan and it is not the meaning of the Spending Clause. . . . The immense size and power of the Government of the United States ought not obscure its fundamental character. It remains a Government of enumerated powers. . . .
