Federal Road Funds for Speed Limit Enforcement

When the federal government wanted to impose a national speed limit and instead of enacting legislation they decided to threaten the states that failed to comply, by withholding federal road funds; I feel it should have been considered unlawful. The choice to enforce a speed limit should fall under the responsibility of each individual state. It should be voted on by the states elected officials whether a speed limit should be raised. I believe that Congress did not simply enact a national speed limit because Congress wanted to give each state the chance to vote on the subject of raising the speed limit in their state and then be able to enforce any speed limit laws for their state. I believe that the federal government unreasonably expressed their federal authority by threatening the states with withholding federal roadway funds for the states that did not adhere to their request of increasing the speed limit. A reason why the federal government may have chosen to accomplish this goal in this type of manner is because our Constitution created a federal government which is divided into three branches; the legislative, executive, and judicial branch. Each branch was supplied with their separate power that was specifically designated by the Constitution. The Constitution regulates whether the duty for executing a specific law falls within the powers of the federal government or whether it is the duty of each state. Federalism is the governmental power between state and federal governments. The Constitution restricts the federal government to only passing laws in the areas by which the Constitution allows them powers. The power of a state is restricted to where no state can pass any law that would disregard the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states that the powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people (Findlaw.com, 2014). For