National League of Cities v. Usery - Significance

Although numerous Supreme Court decisions have spawned new interpretations of well-known constitutional amendments such as the First, Fifth, or Fourteenth, National League of Cities v. Usery was one of the Court's few cases dealing with the Tenth Amendment. The Court's decision in Usery seemed a harbinger of increased authority for state legislatures against the powers of the federal government. Usery was also the first decision in some 40 years to restrict the power of the federal government over interstate commerce, a power which had increased significantly under the "New Deal" of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.