What ensures that no state law or state constitution may conflict with any form of national law? A. reserved powers B. local charters C. supremacy clause D. checks and balance

Answer:

c

Explanation:

Instead of giving Congress additional powers, the Supremacy Clause simply addresses the legal status of the laws that other parts of the Constitution empower Congress to make, as well as the legal status of treaties and the Constitution itself. The core message of the Supremacy Clause is simple: the Constitution and federal laws (of the types listed in the first part of the Clause) take priority over any conflicting rules of state law. This principle is so familiar that we often take it for granted. Still, the Supremacy Clause has several notable features.

To begin with, the Supremacy Clause contains the Constitution’s most explicit references to what lawyers call “judicial review”—the idea that even duly enacted statutes do not supply rules of decision for courts to the extent that the statutes are unconstitutional. Some scholars say that the Supremacy Clause’s reference to “the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance [of the Constitution]” itself incorporates this idea; in their view, a federal statute is not “made in Pursuance [of the Constitution]” unless the Constitution really authorizes Congress to make it. Other scholars say that this phrase simply refers to the lawmaking process described in Article I, and does not necessarily distinguish duly enacted federal statutes that conform to the Constitution from duly enacted federal statutes that do not. But no matter how one parses this specific phrase, the Supremacy Clause unquestionably describes the Constitution as “Law” of the sort that courts apply. That point is a pillar of the argument for judicial review. In addition, the Supremacy Clause explicitly specifies that the Constitution binds the judges in every state notwithstanding any state laws to the contrary.