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Law Outlines Constitutional Law: Fourteenth Amendment, Separation of Powers Outlines

Congressional Powers And Federalism Commerce Outline

Updated Congressional Powers And Federalism Commerce Notes

Constitutional Law: Fourteenth Amendment, Separation of Powers Outlines

Constitutional Law: Fourteenth Amendment, Separation of Powers

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Congressional Powers and Federalism: Commerce

Interstate Commerce Not Interstate Commerce

  • Gibbons

  • Champion v. Ames

  • Shreveport Rate

  • Wickard

  • EC Knight

  • Hammer (Overruled by Darby)

Early: Gibbons (First) -> Hammer (Narrow) -> Wickard (expansive)

Late 19th Century until 1937: Narrow CC.

1937 – 1995: Rubber Stamp of Congress

1995 – 2000: Lopez and Morrison: Guns and VAWA invalidated.

2012: NFIB

Early Commerce Clause Cases: What Happened from EC Knight -> Wickard?

  • PROF: Consider but reject David Strauss’ common law method of constitutional interpretation.

  • Different tests applied:

    • Direct/Indirect

    • Production v. Commerce

    • When Interstate Commerce Stars/Ends (Schecter)

  • Tests eroded over time (Shreveport Rate: Glimpse of world to come).

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

  • Last of CJ Marshall’s important decisions.

  • Steamboat monopoly between NY and NJ.

  • NY law invalidated under Commerce Clause, because Congress has power to regulate interstate commerce.

US v. EC Knight (1895)

  • Sugar Monopoly – Sherman Antitrust Act not apply to CC

  • Manufacturing sugar not commerce.

  • Harlan Dissent: Look at effects; broader conception of commerce.

Champion v. Ames (1903)

  • Shipping international lottery tickets across state lines CAN be regulated by CC.

  • (Goods are dangerous, not the method of their manufacture)

Shreveport Rate Cases (1914)

  • Regulating rates of transportation internal to Texas not a violation of Commerce Clause – intertwined!

  • How to reconcile with EC Knight and Hammer?

    • Still regulating commerce, not production.

    • Industries: Cotton or Sugar manufacturing local; Railroad transportation feels more like interstate commerce

Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)

  • Federal law prohibits goods produced by child labor. CC the only hook able to justify the law?

  • Justice Day: The interstate commerce involves transportation; the production is entirely intrastate. Invasion by federal government of a purely local matter.

    • (Contrast with the lottery, liquor, prostitution cases..)

  • Holmes Dissents: Evil of child labor. Manufacturing part of commerce. Not requiring the state to do anything.

  • Overruled in US v. Darby Lumber (1941)

Schechter Poultry v. US (1935)

  • National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) unconstitutional because regulating safety of chickens in Slaughterhouse not interstate commerce.

  • The flow of Interstate Commerce had ceased.

  • Note: Old distinctions beginning to erode. Direct/indirect on its last les.

Carter v. Carter Coal (1936)

  • Replay of EC Knight – Bituminous Coal Act replaced NIRA, trying to regulate mining industry.

  • 5-4, Sutherland: Mining isn’t commerce. Like manufacturing. “Every journey to a forbidden end begins with the first step.”

  • Cardozo Dissent: direct effect on interstate commerce

  • (Compare to Wickard: Direct opposite regarding aggregation principle. Carter rejects aggregation principle)

[West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)

  • Roberts’ switch in time…

  • Upholding Washington State’s minimum wage law, overturning Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923), and end of Lochner era.]

NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel (1937)

  • Wagner Act (union/labor regulation) can be applied in this case to this company.

  • J&L a massive multi-state corporation. “Close and substantial relation to interstate commerce”

US v. Darby Lumber (1941)

  • Minimum wage law.

  • Last nail in the coffin of Commerce/Manufacture Distinction

    • Over Rule Hammer; Limited the application of Carter Coal

    • Does not say whether Hammer was wrongly decided on Day 1.

    • Instead, recent cases were unpleasant, returning to old doctrine.

Wickard v. Filburn (1942): Expansive conception of commerce

  • Why the change?

    • Dynamism of American constitutionalism.

    • Is it a change attributable to what commerce is changing, or change in perception of federalism?

  • Quota on wheat production; farmer grows for self/livestock.

  • Change: Aggregation Principle. Combination of lots of trivial amounts affects economy.

  • Rejects “production” or “direct/indirect” tests.

  • (Could Wickard and Hammer be reconciled? Different markets…)

* * *

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

  • Statute: Civil Rights Act of 1875, full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations.

  • Question: Does 13/14A provide authority for this act? Did it reconfigure balance of power between state and fed gov’t?

    • 14A § 5: Congress has...

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