Question

Laboratories for reform refers to

Question 24 options:



A. the policy of the Federal Election Commission to try out different forms of campaign finance regulation for one type of political committee before imposing it on all types of political committees.




B. a form of federalism where the states have the ability to try things out without being overruled by Congress.




C. a federal regulatory policy which applies to all kinds of regulations which states that the federal government must ask for public comment before promulgating a new regulation in order to have input from those affected by the regulation.




D. refers to the post-Watergate effort to use experimental campaign finance regulations to increase transparency and disclosure in order to eliminate the appearance of impropriety by candidates.

Answer 1

The correct answer is C.

Laboratories of reform, also denominated laboratories of democracy, was an expression promoted in the US by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

It refers, within the federal structure, to a level of state autonomy that enables state and local goverments to act as "laboratories". They can pass laws that will be tested at the local or state level. It can be regarded as a manner of applying the scientific method to democracy. The most prominent example would be the legalisation of marihuana in the state of Colorado, despite the fact that this substance is forbbiden at the federal level.

The legal basis for these laboratories of democracy is contained in the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution, in the following provision: "all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."