In 1994, officials discovered that 425 residents of Newark, N.J., who were collecting welfare payments in Newark were also collecting payments in nearby New York City. This revelation prompted New York Governor Mario Cuomo to write to Governor Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and inform her that New York’s commissioner of welfare would be contacting his counterparts in New Jersey and neighboring states to coordinate efforts to prevent welfare “double dipping.” Today, New York is exchanging computer tapes on welfare-benefit recipients with Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia.

This incident is one of the success stories in the long history of relations among the nation’s 50 states. But for every example of cooperation and reciprocity, there are many other instances of bickering, lack of trust and competition — for everything from jobs and tourists to sports franchises, says political science professor Joseph Zimmerman in his new book, Interstate Relations: The Neglected Dimension of Federalism.

The history of relations among the states, says Zimmerman, is very much a mixed bag, made even more difficult today by the added complexities of technology and the global marketplace. “It varies all the time. What you find (in many cases) is conflict, but you also find cooperation. Even states in conflict in one area — for example, bitter disputes over water in the Southwest — cooperate in other matters,” said Zimmerman.

One of the reasons for all of the scrapping, he said, is that Congress has been reluctant to exercise its constitutional authority in governing interstate relations. (The most significant example of congressional action, Zimmerman notes, is the Interstate Commerce Act, regulating railroads, and that was not enacted until 1897 — 100 years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.)

“Congress has been reluctant to act — it’s so complex and time-consuming, and, politically, the issues are always so hot,” he said. That has left decisions affecting interstate issues to the federal courts. “The U.S. Supreme Court has, for years, begged Congress to do more legislating (on interstate issues). But Congress has, in effect, passed the buck to the courts, which only act on a narrow, case-by-case basis. This does not produce a grand scheme of regulation,” Zimmerman said.

The neglect of interstate relations among scholars is surprising, considering the long struggle between state and federal power in the U.S., according to Zimmerman. “I wrote the book because no one else seemed to be interested in doing it,” he said. “The complexity of the topic might scare some people away, plus it’s not a politically popular topic. But it’s an area of great potential for scholars,” said Zimmerman, who has been on the University’s faculty for 31 years and teaches American politics, especially federalism. Interstate Relations: The Neglected Dimension of Federalism (Greenwood Publishing) offers a detailed examination of interstate relations, including discussions of interstate suits, fullfaith and credit, privileges and immunities, tax exportation by states, interstate business competition and interstate trade barriers.

Overall, Zimmerman rates the current state of interstate relations, in terms of cooperation and conflict, as a five on a scale of one to ten. But this composite rating masks major differences in the degree of cooperation and conflict between the individual states. The U.S. federal system is the product of compromises between the state and regional blocks of state. And compromises, he points out, seldom completely satisfy all parties.

“Tensions and disputes among states and between states and Congress are prominent features of the system, which are accentuated by the natural tendency of each state to seek to export taxes, protect state industries from outside competition, and attract industrial firms and various categories of purchasers of merchandise,” he concludes. “Furthermore . . . there is a natural reluctance on the part of states . . . to engage in joint ventures because of the loss of exclusive control that accompanies them.”

This general neglect of interstate relations by state and national officials, Zimmerman concludes, has hurt both the states and the union. He calls on state legislatures to enact more uniform or parallel statutes and to enter into more interstate compacts. Governors and the president need to play a greater leadership role in interstate relations, and Congress should examine the way in which it delegates certain regulatory powers to the states, with an eye toward reducing interstate trade barriers.and promoting uniform business taxes. But, political realities being what they are, Zimmerman predicts that Congress will likely only tinker with interstate problems, and he expects that few of the key ideas in the model he proposes will be enacted anytime soon. 3

Christine Hanson McKnight

• In The Ribbon Around the Pentagon: Peace by Piecemakers, Linda Pershing of the Department of Women’s Studies examines how on August 4, 1985, more than 20,000 participants — mostly women — gathered to make a plea for peace against what they saw as an escalating nuclear arms race. In a colorful and unique ceremony, they wrapped 15 miles of decorated fabric panels, known as The Ribbon, around the Pentagon and other government buildings in Washington, D.C., with panel of The Ribbon crafted to communicate anxiety about the nuclear arms race.

Drawing on a number of interviews with participants and the insights of feminist theory, Pershing explores how gender, race, class, and religion affected these women’s participation in the Ribbon project — which for many of them was a life-changing experience.

• An article by Peter Johnson of the Department of Reading, “Voices We Want to Hear and Voices We Don’t,” co-authored with the late John Nicholls, was honored for excellence in educational publishing at the Educational Press Association of America (EdPress) annual conference at Baltimore in June of 1996. The article appeared in the Spring 1995 issue of Theory Into Practice.

Johnston’s award came in the “learned article category” in the competition among members of EdPress, a professional association of education editors and publishers. The article was part of a theme issue on the topic, “Learning From Student Voices,” guest edited by Penny Oldfather of the University of Georgia.

• The strength of the American family in the midst of social change is detailed in Family Ties: Enduring Relations Between Parents and Their Grown Children, the new book by Department of Sociology faculty members John R. Logan and Glenna D. Spitze. Scheduled for release in October by Temple University Press, the work deals comprehensively with family relationship over a longer period of the life cycle than individual studies have done before. It reveals misconceptions about grown children caring for aged parents, and offers conclusive evidence that relationships between parents and their adult children remain intact.

• Romantic longings: Love in America, 1830-1980 (Routledge Press, 1991), Steven Seidman of the Department of Sociology’s book on sexual customs in the U.S., has been translated into Japanese.