Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2005
The balance of national and state powers has undergone continuous readjustment since 1790, without a constitutional amendment by means of numerous congressional preemption statutes superseding completely or partially certain regulatory powers of the states and thereby effectuating a major transformation in the federal system. Congress since 1978 has increased its regulation of subnational governments as polities by enacting preemption statutes containing mandates and restraints (Zimmerman 1994) while simultaneously enacting other statutes providing for extensive deregulation of the banking and communications industries and complete economic deregulation of the air, bus, and rail transportation companies.