If only congress had that power, but the United States of American really are the "united states" of America, not "the country of America", and even folks who live in the US often forget that the federal government really doesn't have a lot of power in regulating how states run their affairs.

Congress literally can't pass the laws the article proposes: it does not have that power. Would be nice if it did, would certainly make the country a better place for the vast majority of people, but as it stands: each state is basically equivalent to a country, with a formal agreement to collaborate as part of a federation, but with express limitations on how much the federation as a whole gets to "interfere".