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| Contributor | CBlock941 |
| Last Edited | CBlock941 Sep 18, 2007 12:31pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Tuesday, September 18, 2007 06:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It's been 20 years that America has had a minimum federal drinking age. The policy began to gain momentum in the early 1980s, when the increasingly influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving added the federal minimum drinking age to its legislative agenda. By 1984, it had won over a majority of the Congress.
President Reagan initially opposed the law on federalism grounds but eventually was persuaded by his transportation secretary at the time, now-Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
Over the next three years every state had to choose between adopting the standard or forgoing federal highway funding; most complied. A few held out until the deadline, including Vermont, which fought the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (and lost).
Twenty years later, the drawbacks of the legislation are the same as they were when it was passed. |
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