Supremacy Clause


Constitutional Law.  Article VI, clause 2, of the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as the Supremacy Clause, provides that federal law controls when there is a conflict with state law.  Specifically, it declares that:

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

The effect of the Supremacy Clause, practically, is that state and local laws are deemed preempted, and therefore invalid, if they conflict with, or frustrate the purpose of, federal law.  As the Supreme Court explained in Gade v. National Solid Wastes Management Ass’n, 505 U.S. 88, “under the Supremacy Clause, from which our pre-emption doctrine is derived, any state law, however clearly within a State’s acknowledged power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must yield.”  Id. at 108; see also De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 357 (1976) (“[E]ven state regulation designed to protect vital state interests must give way to paramount federal legislation.”)

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