How to Distinguish between State and Federal Law
Distinguishing between state and federal law can be intimidating, even confusing, at first. Some areas are regulated by both state and federal governments (such as criminal law), while others are the exclusive province of the state governments (such as divorce law). In order to distinguish between state and federal law, you must identify the source of a law, and then determine where the authority to create that law originates.
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Instructions
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Identify the nature of the law in question: namely, whether it is an agency regulation, a statute, an ordinance, or derived from a constitution. Agency regulations are promulgated by agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the Food and Drug Administration. Statutes are set in writing, and usually look like this: Title X, Chapter X, Section X. Ordinances are promulgated by local authorities, and pertain to issues like noise, and may be called municipal codes. Constitutional provisions may be in the form of amendments (i.e., the Fifth Amendment).
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Determine who made the law. If the law is an ordinance or municipal code, it is neither state nor federal, because it is written and enforced by a more local authority, like a town.
If the law is a constitutional provision (i.e., freedom of speech), it may be located in the federal or state constitutions, or often, both of them.
If the law is a statute, it will have been passed either by the state or federal government.
Agency regulations are often the hardest to conceptualize, but they are laws passed by government-run regulatory agencies, and can be federal (like the Internal Revenue Service) or state (like the Department of Motor Vehicles).
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Determine who gave the law-makers the authority to make the law. This is most important in the context of agency regulations, because their authority was given to them by either the state or federal government to make regulations about a specific subject area. More local issues will be handled by state agencies, while regulations promulgated by federal agencies will apply to everyone equally across the country. Some subject areas are regulated by both federal and state agencies -- environmental emissions, for example. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations apply to everyone in the country, but individual states have Departments of Environmental Quality that may impose regulations that go beyond EPA standards.
As for statutes, unless the statute is part of the U.S.C. (United States Code), it is a state statute.
When identifying the source of a civil right, consider both the state and federal constitutions, which may overlap, although state constitutions usually afford additional rights beyond what the federal constitution provides for.
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Tips & Warnings
If a law applies no matter what state you are in, then, in all likelihood, a federal regulation is related to it.
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