Category Archives: Commerce Clause

How far we have fallen…

Civil Liberties, Commerce Clause, Constitution, Culture, Democracy, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Legal, Point/Counterpoint, Politics, Socialism, Supreme Court, The Welfare State, Theory and Ideas

Reading the point/counterpoint posts on the question of how the supreme court would decide on Obamacares constitutionality, was quite disturbing to me in several ways.

On the one hand I was heartened, because clearly both Brad and Doug are sane and rational folks with a reasonably solid background in both law and politics, and a foundational understanding of the constitution…

Of course, that only highlights how many people in this country are not.

Any reading of the constitution… of the very intent of the founding of this nation… makes it clear that our federal government is meant to be one of of limited and enumerated powers. If the government can mandate this, they can mandate anything. This is the fundamental argument about the necessity for a limiting principle to any government act.

And anyone who doesn’t want unlimited, unconstrained government can see that. Sadly, it seems that the idea of unlimited, unconstrained government is quite popular in some quarters… even with some supreme court justices.

The basic liberal/progressive/leftist argument for socialized medicine is “we should do this even if it IS illegal and unconstitutional, because it’s the right thing to do so the supreme court should uphold it”.

I.E. “It’s good because we want it, and therefore it should be legal because it is good; and we need to get rid of this whole “limited government” thing, because it gets in the way of us doing what is right and good.”

What I also find heartening is that both Brad and Doug both seem to have a good sense of all of this…

But that is also disturbing…

Because both of them seem to share the same actual opinion:

Both believe that Obamacare is ACTUALLY unconstitutional, and should be struck down…

…It’s just that Brad is cynical enough about the supreme court and the political aspects of the decision that he thinks enough justices will be able to argue themselves into ignoring the constitution and doing what they want to do, rather than what is right.

… and Doug believes that there’s a good possibility of that as well; he just has a bit more hope that they won’t.

… and if you look around the commentariat, that’s pretty much the split of positions that every other knowledgable observer has as well.

And if that isn’t disturbing to you, then you really have no idea what is going on, do you?

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com

Counterpoint: The Supreme Court Will Find The Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

Commerce Clause, Constitution, Point/Counterpoint, Separation Of Powers

Earlier this week, Brad Warbiany started out the latest in our occasional series of Point-Counterpoint exchanges by arguing that the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the Constitutionality of the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. I’ll start off by saying that this is not an all implausible. Indeed, I’ve argued myself in the past that the odds were quite good that the Supreme Court would uphold the constitutionality of the mandate. Moreover, as Brad notes, the history of the Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence has been one where the Court has essentially been nearly completely deferential to Congressional exercises of authority in this area. If one were making a bet, the safe bet would be the one that says the mandate would be upheld. Nonetheless, as I argue below I believe that the Supreme Court will in the end strike down the mandate, although the fate of the rest of the PPACA remains far from certain.

The Mandate Forces Citizens To Act In A Manner Never Before Seen In American History

Brad argues against the assertion that the mandate is unique in American history because it forces citizens to purchase a product from a private seller by pointing to examples of other things that the government forces people to do, such as the military draft and jury service. It’s correct that these programs are, at least theoretically, authorized by various provisions of Article I, Section 8. However, that’s very different from what the mandate purports to set in place, which is a requirement that every person in the United States engage in a specific commercial transaction whether they choose to or not. As more than one legal commentator has noted, this is unprecedented in American history and likely one of the main reasons that the PPACA itself has aroused the ire of such a large segment of the American public. As a general rule, Americans don’t like being told what to do by the government and, for many people, this was a bridge too far.

The question is whether it is authorized under the Constitution, and I think the case in favor of it is far stronger than the supporters of the law have been willing to admit up until last week’s hearings.

The Commerce Clause

As I noted above, the Supreme Court has, at least since the New Deal Era, been very deferential to Congressional assertions of authority under the Commerce Clause. This started, as Brad notes, with the case of Wickard v. Filburn in which the Court upheld a provision of the Agricultural Adjustment Act that allowed Federal authorities to bar a farmer from growing “excess” wheat even though he would not be selling it and would solely be using it for personal use on his farm. The Court reasoned that this was acceptable because the farmer’s actions had an impact on Interstate Commerce, even though it might only be a small one. It’s a decision that has always aroused the ire of advocates of limited government and it’s implications are wide ranging. Thanks to Wickard, the Court spent some 50 years rubber stamping Federal assertions of authority under the Commerce Clause. Indeed, after the New Deal Era there were very few challenges to such laws that even made it to the Supreme Court.

Then, in the late 90s things took a surprising change. In Morrison v. United States, the Court struck down several provisions of the Violence Against Women Act which purported to make domestic violence a matter for federal law enforcement under certain circumstances. The Court held that there was no evidence that domestic violence had any connection at all to interstate commerce that would justify giving the Feds police authority that is properly the authority of state governments. Several years later, in Lopez v. United States, the Court struck down the Gun Free School Zones Act on the ground that there was not a sufficient nexus with interstate commerce. Suddenly, it seemed, the Court was finding limits to the Commerce power. There seemed to be a setback when the Court upheld Federal drug charges against a California medical marijuana dealer in Gonalez v. Raich, but there’s a good argument to be made that this case is distinguishable based on the fact that it dealt with illegal drugs and that the Court was unwilling to issue a ruling that would have thrown every single Federal drug law into Constitutional doubt. Had Gonzalez dealt with any other commodity, it’s quite conceivable that it would have gone the other way.

It’s been said by PPACA advocates that striking down the mandate would require the Court to overrule 70 years of Commerce Clause precedent, but Morrison, Lopez and even Raich, show that this isn’t necessarily true. Each of the courts that have struck down the mandate have held that the problem with the mandate isn’t that the Courts have been wrong for the past three-quarters of a century about the Commerce Clause, but that even those precedents do not authorize what Congress wishes to do in this particular case. Indeed, it is perfectly easy to distinguish Wickard and its progeny from the PPACA mandate in a way that preserves precedent and yet compels the conclusion that the mandate is a Constitutional bridge too far.

This is what I expect the Supreme Court to do when it issues its opinion in June. Much to the relief of liberals and the chagrin of conservatives, striking down the individual mandate will not mean that the New Deal will be rolled back. What it will mean, though, is that, as in Lopez and Morrison, the Court will be drawing a line and saying that Congress cannot cross it because it does not have the Constitutional authority to do so. It will, in other words, further articulate a limiting principle for the Commerce Clause.

Which brings me to the next part of Brad’s argument I need to address.

Limiting Principles

Brad is correct that the Court could construct a limiting principle if it ends up saying that the mandate is Constitutional. Perhaps this is what it will end up doing. However, it is worth understanding the importance of the failure of the Government to articulate a limiting principle when asked for one by the Court. For one thing, this isn’t the first time that the Court has failed to do so. Reviewing the transcripts of oral argument in many of the lower court proceedings, one runs into other occasions when Judges inquired of the attorneys for the Government whether they believed that there was any limit on the Commerce Power given their arguments in favor of the mandate. In no case were the attorneys willing or able to do so. In some cases, this was cited by Judges as a reason that the mandate cannot be upheld, in others it wasn’t (athough it is worth noting that lower Court judges are bound by precedent from the Supreme Court in a manner that Supreme Court Justices are not).

As a purely tactical matter, it strikes me that an attorney who is unable to provide an answer when a Judge asks “If I rule in your favor, what guarantee is there that I won’t be establishing a precedent to do X” is potentially damaging their case. Most judges are not, by their nature, radicals.Meaning that if they can avoid issuing an opinion that could have far reaching consequences they are likely to do so. It was quite evident from the questioning during last week’s oral argument over the individual mandate that the Court, and specifically Justice Kennedy, has some concerns about the future implications of issuing an opinion upholding the mandate. The Solicitor General’s failure to provide an answer may end up being fatal to the Government’s case.

The Necessary And Proper Clause

This is perhaps the strongest argument that Brad raises. Under the broadest interpretation of the Supreme Court precedents on this case, anything that is necessary for Congress to carry out one of it’s authorized powers is Constitutional. Indeed, this is pretty much what the Supreme Court said when it authorized the creation of the First Bank Of  The United States in McCullough v. Maryland. For that reason alone, it’s interesting that there was so little discussion of the necessary and proper clause during the oral argument last week. Partly, this may be because the law here is pretty much settled and has been for nearly two centuries but one would have thought that Paul Clement, the attorney for the states would have been subjected to some strong questioning on this topic by the Justices on this issue. He really wasn’t, although there was some discussion about whether the health care market was “unique” in some way that made this mandate permissible.

The problem with this argument that it still leaves the Court searching for a limiting principle. If Congressional power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the interstate health care/health insurance market is so broad that it can enact a law that includes a requirement that all Americans purchase insurance, then does that mean that its power to regulate the interstate automobile market is so broad that it can enact a law requiring Americans to buy only American made cars? Even if the Court were to decide that the Necessary and Proper Clause was sufficient authorization for the mandate, it would still be left with the limiting principle question. And my reading of the Court at this time is that there is a majority right now that is unwilling to issue an opinion that would essentially be an open door to Congressional intrusion in even more aspects of the economy, and an end to any hope that there could be limits imposed on Washington, D.C.

Conclusion

I could end up being totally wrong about this, of course. This case is so closely dividing the Court that it’s impossible to guess how it will turn out. I will say that I think that if the mandate is struck down we are looking at a 5-4 decision because there is just no way that I can see Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, or Kagan going over to the side of the conservatives on this issue. However, if the mandate is upheld I would not be surprised to see it be a 6-3 decision for a very specific reason. Ordinarily, the most senior Justice in the majority gets to decide who writes the majority opinion. However, if the Chief Justice is in the majority he gets to make that decision. If Kennedy ends up voting to uphold the mandate then I could see Chief Justice Roberts joining him so that he can write the opinion himself and make the precedential value of the decision as limited as possible.

However, if the Court were to strike down the mandate, I believe I’ve laid out a perfectly rational, Constitutional basis on which they would do so. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a political firestorm, of course, but there is going to be a political firestorm no matter how the Court rules. I don’t think there’s ever been a time in American history when such an important case was in the hands of the Court in the same year as a Presidential election. Especially an election where the very issue the Court is dealing with, the limitations on the authority of the state contained in the Constitution, were also the central issue in the Presidential election. It’s going to be a very interesting opinion regardless of which way it comes down.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Point: How The Supreme Court Will Find The Individual Mandate Constitutional

Commerce Clause, Constitution, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Point/Counterpoint, Separation Of Powers, Supreme Court

This is part of The Liberty Papers’ continuing Point/Counterpoint series, where two contributors (or a contributor and a guest) argue competing sides of an issue. In this installment, I will argue that the Supreme Court has a realistic defensible argument to find the Individual Mandate in ObamaCare Constitutional. Tomorrow, Doug Mataconis will respond with a rebuttal. Links will be updated in each post as they appear.

UPDATE 4/4: Doug’s rebuttal is available here.

As always, we’re constantly looking for good debate topics for this series, and qualified guest posters to argue one side against one of the contributors.

————————————————

Stipulated up front — I believe that ObamaCare is a severe affront to individual rights, limited government, and the ideals upon which our Republic was founded. In my own view of Constitutional jurisprudence, overturning the law is a no brainer. But as with most things our government does, they’re not listening to me, so the question is simple:

Does the Supreme Court have enough precedent to find the individual mandate Constitutional?

I think they do. And the argument has several elements.

Forcing You To Act

One of the first points of contention is the question of regulating activity versus regulating inactivity. The question being whether or not the Congress can force you to act if you choose not to. Many claim that Congress forcing you to purchase a good from a private seller is a bridge farther than they’ve ever gone before.

But taking the question of “buying from a private seller” out of the equation, is anyone suggesting that the government can’t force you to do something under threat of fine or jail? Ever heard of the Selective Service? I’d say a government that can force me to report for military service to die for my country is asking something a fair bit more serious than demanding I have health insurance. The government in this case can COMPEL you to do something within its rightful power — the power to raise armies. Or on a subject less likely to result in ending up full of lead, there’s Federal jury service. The government can COMPEL you to do something within its rightful power — the power to raise courts and ensure defendants a fair trial judged by their peers.

The question isn’t whether or not the government can force you to do something — Republicans, Democrats, Presidents, and Supreme Court Justices have all agreed that it can. The question is whether or not forcing you to buy health insurance falls within the power of what they can force you to do.

The Commerce Clause

Most of the debate so far has centered around whether the mandate — a regulation of inactivity, not of activity, is within Congress’ commerce clause power. We’ve had cases like Wickard v. Filburn, where the Court has ruled that someones activity can be regulated whether or not it directly engages in interstate commerce, because the act of growing your own wheat [and not buying it from the market] may have an affect on interstate commerce. We’ve even had Gonzales v. Raich, where the Court has ruled that the grasp of Congress extends even to activities which affect an interstate market in goods the government would prefer have no market at all.

The Government’s lawyers in this case say that the mandate is Constitutional because not buying insurance may affect interstate commerce. The opposition states that Congress can regulate activity related to interstate commerce, but regulating inactivity is a bridge too far. Supporters of ObamaCare, however, do have a point here. It can hardly be argued that refusing to purchase health insurance means that you’re not impacting the US healthcare system. Unless you have an ironclad “do not treat” waiver stapled to your forehead at all times, I’m pretty certain that if you’re in a car wreck and unconscious, you’re going to become a participant in the healthcare market. And if you don’t have insurance, that’s likely to bankrupt you, cost the taxpayer a hefty sum, or both. In this case, your supposed inactivity really is activity.

But this isn’t the only argument. One of the key points that is not argued is whether or not the US Congress has the authority to regulate the US Healthcare market at all. And the reason that’s not being argued is that it’s flatly assumed that Congress can regulate the healthcare market. In fact, even most pro-liberty Constitutionalists agree that if Congress had simply voted for a single-payer system, current Supreme Court jurisprudence wouldn’t have any cause to overturn it. So this brings us to our next point:

The Necessary and Proper Clause

This is really the crux. The clause says that Congress has power to make all laws “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.” A long time ago, that limited the government significantly. In fact, in the fight over the First Bank of The United States, the Feds argued that the Bank was necessary to engage in all the things that the government legitimately and Constitutionally needed to do. The opponents argued that while the Bank may be convenient and helpful to the government to do what it needs to do, it was hardly necessary. They took a very strong view that the word “necessary” meant what it said — if you could accomplish the goal without doing X, then X didn’t meet the Constitutional requirement of necessity.

Sadly, the Necessary & Proper clause was one of the first to get ignored by the Supreme Court, as Randy Barnett (a lawyer opposing ObamaCare in this case) pointed out in his book Restoring the Lost Constitution. One of the key growths in Government power over the early days of the Republic was to grant deference to Government lawyers if they said something was necessary.

In this case, much of the oral arguments centered around whether ObamaCare could stand without the individual mandate. Both sides agreed that Congress has the power to regulate healthcare, but they didn’t agree that the individual mandate was, on its own, Constitutional. After all, if they can mandate you purchase insurance, which might help restrain the growth of healthcare costs, might they not also mandate you purchase broccoli, as the health effects thereof might help restrain the growth of healthcare costs?

Many ObamaCare opponents cheered at the lines of questioning whether ruling the mandate Unconstitutional would cause the entire law to fall. Those opponents believed that it was a way for the Court’s conservative wing to ensure that they could toss out the whole law, rather than simply severing the mandate. But looking at the argument another way, it proves that the mandate is necessary to the law.

So let’s look at the “necessary and proper” test. First is propriety — laws made by Congress are only proper if they relate to one of its Constitutional powers. While I might not think Congress has legitimate authority to make sweeping healthcare legislation, I think we’ve well established that current Court jurisprudence is untroubled by the idea that Congress has commerce clause power to regulate healthcare. So the test of propriety is cleared. The second is necessity: is the mandate necessary to fulfill Congress’ authority to regulate the interstate commerce of healthcare. And I think the oral arguments proved, regardless of what side you’re on in this debate, that the mandate is absolutely necessary to the structure of the law. Get rid of the mandate, and you might as well throw the whole thing out.

So if regulating the healthcare market is a legitimate authority of Congress, within their purview granted by the commerce clause, then the question becomes whether this mandate is necessary for them to exercise their authority. I think the answer, as shown by oral argument, is yes. So the government clears the bars of both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper clause.

Limiting Principles

A final argument by the opponents has been that if the mandate stands, it grants Congress ultimate power, which the Court will not allow to happen. And they’ve been encouraged by some lines of questioning in oral argument, where the “broccoli test” showed that the Government’s lawyers were unable to articulate a limiting principle of their argument.

But as loath as I am to agree with Kevin Drum on something (or whoever he borrowed the argument from), the Government doesn’t need to articulate a limiting principle. It’s up to the Court to determine whether THIS action is Constitutional. And they could very easily craft a limiting principle that allows the individual insurance mandate but doesn’t allow for an individual broccoli mandate.

How simple is it?

Q. Is the individual insurance mandate absolutely necessary to the very structure of Obamacare?
A. Yes.
Q. Is the hypothetical broccoli mandate absolutely necessary to the very structure of Obamacare?
A. No. Are you f’ing serious?

The Court already has the “necessary & proper” clause as its limiting principle. If they accept the basic structure of ObamaCare as Constitutional, extending to Congress a provision that might be Unconstitutional on its own, but necessary as part of a wider power, would not be a shock.

Conclusion

I’m not going to claim that the above argument suggests that the Court will find ObamaCare Constitutional. I’m a firm believer in the idea that the Justices often decide — like people in all other walks of life — what they want to do and rationalize an argument into it afterwards. And I think we have a pretty decent idea how 8 of the 9 Justices will decide in this case, a 4-4 tie broken by Anthony Kennedy.

Should Kennedy vote to overturn the mandate, I expect the majority opinion to fall to one of the solid conservative justices. Should Kennedy vote to uphold, he very well might pen the majority opinion. For Kennedy to accept the mandate, I think he has to see a legitimate limiting principle — and the necessary & proper clause provides both the grounds for upholding the mandate and the inklings of a limiting principle in one fell swoop. Oh, and in case you followed the oral arguments, Kennedy was *very* interested in the concept of severability and seemed to assume, whether he votes to keep it or toss it, that the mandate was necessary to the structure.

I don’t know which way this thing’s gonna go, but I’m not as confident as other libertarians, conservatives, and small-government Constitutionalists. I see a very plausible rationale for upholding it, and thus I think we’re hoping that one oft-flighty Justice happens to come down on our side of the vote.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Montana Firearms Freedom Act: Tilting At Windmills

Commerce Clause, Constitution, Federalism, Government Regulation, Individual Rights, Keep and Bear Arms, Separation Of Powers, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Supreme Court

While I laud any state trying to expand the freedom of its residents while simultaneously thumbing it’s nose at Washington, I can’t see this ending well:

On October 1, 2009, Montana passed the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, the purpose of which was to regulate guns manufactured and kept within Montana state lines under a less restrictive regulatory regime than federal law provides. That same day, to ensure that Montanans could enjoy the benefits of this less restrictive state regulation, the Montana Shooting Sports Association filed a declaratory judgment claim in federal court.

The lawsuit’s importance is not limited to Montana, as seven other states have passed laws similar to the MFFA and 20 states have introduced such legislation. The goal here is to reinforce state regulatory authority over commerce that is by definition intrastate, to take back some of the ground occupied by modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

The district court granted the government’s motion to dismiss, however, and MSSA appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Now on appeal, Cato has joined the Goldwater Institute to file an amicus brief supporting the MSSA and arguing that federal power does not preempt Montana’s ability to exercise its sovereign police powers to facilitate the exercise of individual rights protected by the Second and Ninth Amendments. More specifically, for federal law to trump the MFFA, the government must claim that the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses give it the power to regulate wholly intrastate manufacture, sale, and possession of guns, which MSSA argues is a state-specific market distinct from any related national one.

The general question here is whether modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence should be upended for this case. I believe it should, but I believe it won’t. The manufacture/sale/possession of firearms, while declared to be purely intrastate matters, would seem to “substantially affect” interstate commerce in the same way as the Court found in Wickard & Raich. On the question of whether the activity affects interstate commerce, I don’t think there can be any debate should current Commerce Clause jurisprudence hold. Under such jurisprudence, the Feds can reasonably claim that their more stringent requirements for firearms is Necessary to effectively regulate firearms in an interstate manner.

The actual brief (linked above) submitted by Goldwater & Cato draws more narrow inferences than the quoted text above, however. They recognize the current precedent of Wickard & Raich, but push a state sovereignty angle which seems much more substantial. The argument seems to be that in areas traditionally regulated at the state level, rather than the federal level, and where the state action is protecting individual liberty rather than restricting it (i.e. no 14th amendment privileges & immunities issues here), the level of scrutiny required by the Feds to override State law should be significantly higher. However, I suspect that such efforts will still either fall short, or require Supreme Court gymnastics to carve out a VERY narrow exception here (i.e. emanations & penumbra gymnastics).

It’s telling that one of the cases used as justification here is a case [Massachusetts v. Sebelius] where Massachusetts argued against the DOMA, on the grounds that Massachusetts more libertarian law upholding same-sex unions was infringed upon by DOMA. Effectively DOMA made it impossible for certain federally-funded programs which would traditionally go to “married” couples (or survivors thereof) could not be extended to same-sex couples. Because the regulation of marriage was traditionally within the purview of the States, not the Feds, and because DOMA violated the State’s liberty-protecting equal protection clause within the Massachusetts Constitution, for the Congress to intervene here was shown to be a violation of Massachusetts sovereignty.

However, I don’t think the Massachusetts case will be applicable here. While it is traditionally the purview of the States to regulate marriage, I don’t think it can be shown here that Massachusetts recognition of same-sex marriage substantially affects interstate commerce. The portion of DOMA that would have protected states from being forced to recognize same-sex marriages from other states was also not at issue. While it might be within the general police powers of the States to regulate some aspects of firearms manufacture/sale/ownership, I believe the Court would find the Commerce Clause precedent more binding than a finding of state sovereignty.

Another aspect of the state sovereignty argument appears in section I-A of the brief [p7-11]. Several points are raised:

  • That the Federal government cannot force a State legislature to legislate as directed by the Feds. In this case, I don’t believe the point applies, as the Feds are not demanding the States implement this regulation for them, but rather declaring such regulation to be a Federal matter to be decided by Congress rather than the States.
  • That the Federal government cannot commandeer State resources for the execution of federal regulation. Again, they are not forcing State police to enforce a more strict version of firearms regulation, and various drug decriminalization (and State medical marijuana initiatives) have created a situation where, while a State may [unconstitutionally] declare certain activities legal that the Federal government deems illegal, the States are within their rights to limit the use of State resources for investigation and prosecution of Federal crimes that they deem unwieldy. California can simultaneously hold the position that while medical marijuana is Federally illegal, the State does not consider it criminal, and thus the Feds themselves must enforce it if they so choose.
  • That the Federal government may not regulate/criminalize wholly intrastate activities with no economic impact. I think Commerce Clause jurisprudence would suggest that manufacture/sale/possession of weapons cannot be shown to be wholly intrastate, and it certainly includes economic impact.
  • Finally, that the Federal government may not subject State government employees to the dictates or working regulations of the Federal government — I think this one is so far removed from the case at hand to not warrant discussion.

To argue that this is a matter of state sovereignty is to argue that regulations of firearms has been a long-standing matter of the states themselves, and that for the Federal government to step in and demand more stringent regulation under Commerce Clause grounds requires such heightened scrutiny that cannot be supported here. However, Federal firearms laws have been in force since 1934, and while this is not proof that the regulation of firearm manufacture/sale/ownership should be a Federal matter, it certainly cuts some strength from the argument that this is purely a matter of state sovereignty.

It seems to me that this lawsuit is a bit of a hail mary. For it to succeed, we would need to see a sea-change in Commerce Clause jurisprudence (almost impossibly unlikely), or for the Brady Bill and/or National Firearms Act to be struck down as Unconstitutional (because both would infringe on state sovereignty). A greater likelihood, based on current conservative makeup of the court, would be a VERY narrowly worded decision involving some legal gymnastics. However, given the deference to Federal power I’ve seen from Roberts & Alito, and given that they would need such a narrow crafting to ensure that they wouldn’t open up whole hosts of other State sovereignty challenges to Federal law, I don’t see much likelihood there. Fundamentally the plaintiffs are pushing for a general large change in Federal/State interaction, one which I doubt the Supreme Court is ready to uphold.

Of course, that’s all assuming it ever makes it to the Supreme Court, itself an unlikely prospect.

While I have great sympathy for the plaintiffs here, I can’t say I’d be laying strong odds on their success.
» Read more

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

South Dakota Lawmakers Confused By Federal/State Distinction — Embarrass Selves

Commerce Clause, Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Separation Of Powers

[shakes head]

A group of South Dakota lawmakers has introduced a bill that would require almost everyone in their state to buy a gun once they turn 21.

Turns out it’s not a serious attempt. Rather, the lawmakers are trying to make a point about the new health care law — that an individual mandate is unconstitutional, whether it requires everyone to buy health insurance or, in South Dakota’s case, a firearm.

Rep. Hal Wick, one of five co-sponsors, told The Argus Leader newspaper that he expects the bill to fail.

“Do I or the other co-sponsors believe that the state of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.

The town of Kennesaw, GA mandates that every resident own a gun. The State of Massachusetts mandates that every resident purchase health insurance. Neither of those mandates caused a US Constitutional crisis. How in the world is the proposed South Dakota gun mandate in any different?

In truth, it’s not. We have long placed certain actions within the purview of State power that would be unconstitutional if done federally. It is only blatant misreading of the commerce clause that has allowed the Feds to infringe as far as they have.

Yet these dolts think that trying to enact a STATE mandate is somehow logically analogous to fighting a federal mandate. As if nobody had heard of MassCare or nobody had drawn up the suggestion that states have the power to require car insurance but may be* unconstitutional to mandate at the Federal level. They, by their words above, do not even seem to grasp the distinction between Article I, Section 8’s enumeration of powers at the Federal level and the fact that States are held to a different [lower] standard.

I can only see two reasons for this:

  1. They really ARE this dumb.
  2. This is all just one big publicity stunt.

The former suggests that the voters of South Dakota shouldn’t be trusted at the ballot any further, as they clearly can’t elect people capable of behaving responsibly in office. The latter suggests that the politicians just happen to believe that the voters of South Dakota [and writers for Fox News] are so dumb that they can’t tell the difference between State and Federal actions. Either way, it’s one more example that democracy doesn’t work.
» Read more

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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