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The Parking Spot: How Federalism Became America's Oldest Political Weapon

Draft Complete — Pending Author Review

Fact Check

7/10
fact-check.md

Fact Check Report

Draft: articles/2026-02-13_new-federalism/04-draft/draft.md Date: 2026-02-13 Checker: Fact Check Agent

Summary

The draft is factually solid on its core claims. The major analytical framework -- that federalism has historically been wielded as a weapon by the out-of-power faction -- is well-supported by both the source material and independent verification. The polling numbers, legal doctrine characterizations, and historical sweep are largely accurate. However, there is one red flag (a factual error in the opening paragraph's timeline), several yellow flags around imprecise quotation, a mislinked URL, and a minor math error, plus a few items that deserve host verification before recording.

  • RED flags: 1
  • YELLOW flags: 5
  • BLUE flags: 4

Findings

RED Flags

"days after federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis"

  • Location in script: Opening paragraph, line 10
  • Issue: At the time of Vance's January 8, 2026 statement, only ONE American citizen had been killed -- Renee Good, shot on January 7, 2026. The second killing (Alex Pretti) did not occur until January 24, 2026 -- more than two weeks AFTER Vance's televised statement. The draft's framing implies both shootings had already occurred when Vance spoke. This is factually wrong.
  • Evidence: Wikipedia's entry on the Killing of Alex Pretti confirms the date as January 24, 2026. CNN's coverage of Vance's immunity claim is dated January 8, 2026, the day after Good's shooting. The source material (source-01) also confirms Good was killed January 7 and Pretti on January 24. The draft's own source material contradicts its framing.
  • Recommended fix: Rewrite the opening to accurately state the timeline. Option A: "days after a federal agent shot and killed an American citizen in Minneapolis" (singular, referring only to Good). Option B: restructure the sentence to separate the two events, e.g., "In a month that saw federal agents kill two American citizens in Minneapolis during immigration raids, JD Vance went on national television on January 8th -- one day after the first killing -- and declared..." Either way, the current phrasing must be corrected. The "two American citizens" framing is a strong hook and should be preserved somewhere in the piece, but it cannot be placed before January 8 as though both had already happened.

YELLOW Flags

"135 years of continuous Supreme Court precedent"

  • Location in script: Steelman section, line 54
  • Issue: The Chinese Exclusion Case (Chae Chan Ping v. United States) was decided on May 13, 1889. As of the article's publication date of February 2026, that is approximately 137 years, not 135. This is a minor arithmetic error but it is the kind of detail that undermines credibility when noticed.
  • Context: The source material (source-14) correctly cites the case as 1889. The Congress.gov constitutional annotation link provided in the draft is valid.
  • Recommended fix: Change "135 years" to "nearly 140 years" or "more than 135 years" or simply "over a century" to avoid a precise-but-wrong number. Alternatively, use the correct figure: "137 years."

Spencer Deery quote: "vowed to fight federal 'bullying' of his state 'with his last breath'"

  • Location in script: Steelman section, line 60
  • Issue: The actual Deery quote, as reported by NPR and the Indiana Senate Republicans' official statement, is: "As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct and control this state or any state." The draft's paraphrase -- "with his last breath" -- subtly changes the meaning. Deery said "as long as I have breath" (a statement of ongoing commitment), not "with his last breath" (which implies a willingness to die over it, a more dramatic framing). Additionally, the draft says he vowed to fight federal "bullying" -- the actual quote uses "bully, direct and control," which is a broader set of actions. The paraphrase compresses and slightly dramatizes the original.
  • Context: This is not fabrication -- the paraphrase captures the spirit. But for an article that stakes its credibility on precision, the quote marks around "bullying" and "with his last breath" imply these are Deery's words when they are not exact.
  • Recommended fix: Either use the actual quote ("As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct and control this state or any state") or remove the quotation marks and paraphrase more loosely, e.g., "vowed to resist federal pressure on his state for as long as he had breath."

Hyperlink mismatch: Columbia Law scholarship link used for Republican AG lawsuits claim

  • Location in script: Line 44
  • Issue: The draft states "Under Obama, Republican attorneys general sued the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds" and hyperlinks this claim to https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1813/. That URL is Bulman-Pozen's "Partisan Federalism" paper at Columbia Law School -- it is NOT about Republican AG lawsuits specifically. The Bulman-Pozen paper discusses partisan federalism as a general framework. It does address the phenomenon of state-level partisan resistance, but linking it as though it is documentation of specific lawsuits is misleading.
  • Context: The claim itself is accurate -- Republican AGs did sue on Tenth Amendment grounds over the ACA (notably in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius). Greg Abbott's Texas AG office filed 31+ lawsuits against the Obama administration. But the linked source does not specifically document these lawsuits.
  • Recommended fix: Either (a) link to a source that specifically documents the Republican AG lawsuits (e.g., the Texas Tribune's tracker, or PolitiFact's verification of Abbott's lawsuit count, or a Ballotpedia page on ACA litigation), or (b) change the link to point to the Bulman-Pozen paper but reframe the text so it is clear the link is about the "partisan federalism" framework, not the specific lawsuits.

"Reason magazine's Volokh Conspiracy -- a libertarian legal outlet" calling Vance's claim "absolutely ridiculous"

  • Location in script: Steelman section, line 58
  • Issue: The "absolutely ridiculous" quote is from Professor Michael Mannheimer of Northern Kentucky University, writing as a guest on the Volokh Conspiracy blog (hosted on Reason.com). The quote originally appeared in Mannheimer's comment to a CNN reporter and was then repeated in his Volokh Conspiracy guest post. Attributing the quote to "Reason magazine's Volokh Conspiracy" as though it represents the outlet's editorial position is imprecise. It is one professor's characterization in a guest post, not an institutional judgment by Reason magazine.
  • Context: The characterization of Reason/Volokh Conspiracy as "a libertarian legal outlet, not a progressive one" is accurate and the framing is fair -- the point is that opposition to Vance's claim crosses ideological lines. But the attribution should be tighter.
  • Recommended fix: Attribute the quote to the person who said it: "Legal scholar Michael Mannheimer, writing on the Volokh Conspiracy -- a libertarian legal blog -- called Vance's claim 'absolutely ridiculous.'" This preserves the cross-ideological framing while being accurate about who said it.

Cuellar described as "president of one of the most credible governance institutions in America"

  • Location in script: Line 32
  • Issue: This is editorial characterization presented as though it were an objective description. Carnegie Endowment is widely respected, but calling it "one of the most credible governance institutions in America" is a subjective judgment, not a fact. In a piece that prides itself on precision, this reads as advocacy for the source's credibility rather than letting the reader judge.
  • Context: Cuellar's credentials ARE impressive -- he is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a former California Supreme Court justice, and a former Stanford law professor. These facts speak for themselves and are more persuasive than the editorialized description.
  • Recommended fix: Replace the subjective characterization with the factual credentials: "the Carnegie Endowment's Mariano-Florentino Cuellar -- a former California Supreme Court justice and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace -- put it..." Let the reader assess credibility from the credentials.

BLUE Flags (Verification Needed)

Bulman-Pozen's article described as "Harvard Law Review back in 2014"

  • Location in script: Line 28
  • Note: This checks out. The article is Jessica Bulman-Pozen, "Partisan Federalism," 127 Harv. L. Rev. 1077 (2014). Volume 127, Number 4, February 2014. The URL in the draft (https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-127/partisan-federalism/) is correct. The quoted language about Americans being "particularly likely to identify with states when they are controlled by the party out of power in Washington" is confirmed in the paper. However, the draft attributes this specific phrasing to Bulman-Pozen as a direct quote. The host should verify the exact wording against the paper, as the source material (source-09) presents this as a paraphrase rather than a direct quotation with quotation marks. The concept is accurately conveyed.

Randy Barnett "coined the term 'fair-weather federalism'"

  • Location in script: Line 82
  • Note: Barnett has prominently used the term "fair-weather federalism" in multiple published pieces -- including a 2012 Reason article titled "Fair-Weather Federalists" and a 2017 National Review op-ed. However, whether he literally "coined" the term is harder to verify. The concept and similar phrasing appear in other contexts (Fox News used the exact phrase "fair-weather federalism" as an article title; Governing magazine used it; the Center for Immigration Studies used it). Barnett is certainly the most prominent legal scholar to use it, but claiming he "coined" it may be imprecise. The host should either verify this or soften to "popularized" or "has used the term."

Cuellar's "script has flipped 180 degrees" -- direct quote vs. paraphrase

  • Location in script: Line 32
  • Note: The source material (source-04) attributes this as a direct quote from Cuellar. The Carnegie Endowment URL (https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/02/federalism-states-ice-minneapolis) appears correct. Web search confirms the phrase. However, the Writer's Notes at line 98 explicitly flag that "Cuellar quotes are drawn from the source summary rather than direct article quotation -- the original Carnegie piece should be reviewed for fuller attribution during editing." The host should verify the exact quote against the original Carnegie article before publication.

"the party that built its modern identity on a single constitutional idea: states' rights"

  • Location in script: Line 10
  • Note: This is a characterization of the Republican Party that is broadly defensible as editorial analysis but could be challenged. The Republican Party's "modern identity" has been built on multiple constitutional ideas (limited government, individual liberty, Second Amendment, religious freedom) in addition to states' rights. Describing states' rights as the "single constitutional idea" is reductive. This is arguably rhetorical hyperbole rather than a factual claim, but the host should be aware it could be pushed back on by readers who point to other pillars of Republican constitutional identity.

Sources Consulted

Web Sources (independently searched and verified)

Source Material (reviewed)

  • All 15 source files in 00-source-material/ were read and cross-referenced against the draft

Clean Claims

The following major factual claims in the draft checked out and are on solid ground:

  1. JD Vance is a Yale Law graduate. Confirmed.
  2. Vance claimed federal agents are "protected by absolute immunity." Confirmed. CNN, January 8, 2026.
  3. Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit invoking the Tenth Amendment. Confirmed. Filed January 12, 2026.
  4. The 85%/83% Fox News polling split. Confirmed. Fox News poll, January 23-26, 2026. 85% of Republicans favor requiring local-ICE cooperation; 83% of Democrats oppose it.
  5. Indiana Senate voted 31-19 against redistricting, with 21 Republicans voting no. Confirmed by NPR, Indiana Capital Chronicle, NBC News, CNN.
  6. Bulman-Pozen's "Partisan Federalism" in Harvard Law Review, 2014. Confirmed. Volume 127, Number 4.
  7. Cuellar is president of Carnegie Endowment and a former California Supreme Court justice. Confirmed.
  8. The plenary power doctrine originates in the Chinese Exclusion Case of 1889. Confirmed. Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581 (1889).
  9. Jefferson authored the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798; Madison authored the Virginia Resolutions. Confirmed.
  10. Northern states passed "personal liberty laws" forbidding cooperation with federal slave catchers. Confirmed. Multiple states enacted these from the 1820s through the 1850s.
  11. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock. Confirmed. September 1957, Executive Order 10730.
  12. The SAVE Act passed the House on a party-line vote (218-213). Confirmed. February 11, 2026.
  13. The SAVE Act would require states to submit voter rolls to DHS for vetting. Confirmed by Congress.gov text, Campaign Legal Center analysis.
  14. Ilya Somin is at George Mason University. Confirmed. Antonin Scalia Law School.
  15. Democrats fought state resistance to the ACA. Confirmed. The ACA litigation involved 26+ state AGs filing suit.
  16. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the dynamic of demanding federal enforcement in Northern states. Confirmed. The antebellum South did demand both states' rights for themselves and federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the North.
  17. Both Minneapolis shooting victims were American citizens. Confirmed. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were both U.S. citizens.
  18. Spencer Deery is a Republican state senator who voted against Trump-backed redistricting. Confirmed.