This is a very far-reaching decision. The decision is really that Congress cannot have a federal agency regulating anything unless Congress specifically votes on something like the filtration efficiency of item x in smokestack diameter y.
It has implications for other things too. For example, the post office. How about 50 individual post offices instead of a national post office since now logically the price of a stamp cannot be adjusted unless Congress votes on it, etc.
Thanks didn’t know it was actually congress. Makes more sense to me now. But does congress even have authority to regulate that? Does it fall under unenumerated rights that fall to the people? I guess I remember hearing they regulate it under interstate commerce?
There is no need for Congress to keep up with all the issues affecting the country. They should only legislate on issues where they have legitimate Constitutional authority without stretching the intended meaning of the commerce clause. Everything else can be left to the several states, or simply not regulated at all.
In particular I hope the Supreme Court will eventually reverse the precedents established in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), United States v. Darby (1941), and United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters (1944). That would essentially destroy much of the federal government as we know it today, and good riddance.
> Interstate commerce would allow congress to make such a law. However, the real question will be if congress gave or intended to give the FTC the authority to perform this action.
That's my take as well. There is almost certainly no doubt that the commerce clause (under current precedents since the 30s) gives Congress the authority to make legal rules like this one. If there be doubt here then it will be about a) the ability of Congress to delegate this power with b) such a vague and all-encompassing term as "unfair" to describe the practices that the FTC may regulate, and/or c) whether this particular rule violates the "major questions" doctrine found in the recent W. Virginia vs. EPA case.
That wouldn't be the issue here. The question is not whether the federal government gets to set standards at all under the Commerce Clause.
Instead, the issue here would be whether the Act of Congress that specifically governs air efficiency standards gives any quarter to this administration's laughable potential reasoning for not granting a waiver that the law dictates must be granted by the EPA Administrator to allow any state to exceed the federal standard.
Interstate commerce would allow congress to make such a law. However, the real question will be if congress gave or intended to give the FTC the authority to perform this action.
This supreme court has been very down on federal powers, so it really would not be surprising if they pulled "the major questions doctrine" to ultimately kill this off.
The power to regulate an area is based on the subject matter, whether it qualifies as “interstate commerce,” not whether some conduct within that domain is permitted or not. It’s not a one-way ratchet where Congress sets a floor and states can ratchet it up if they want. Sometimes that’s what Congress wants to do, but other times it decides that some things should be unregulated beyond a certain threshold. That’s a function of the regulatory framework Congress chooses to enact, not what the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to do.
It is not actually the federal government's job to regulate every detail of every transaction that crosses state lines. The specifics of the lightbulbs are only tangentially related to the commercial transaction and even less connected to the fact that it crosses state lines, so I would hardly consider Congress negligent if it declined to make rules for cross-state light bulb shipping.
Commerce clause is a valid reason for federal government to make rules. Imagine each state having their own EPA with their own rules and regulations. Or each state had their own FAA. Or OSHA. It would kill interstate commerce because it would be too costly for businesses to operate at the national level.
Except that the power of Congress to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States" does not mean that Congress has the power to regulate an individual's commercial activity. It means that Congress has the power to forbid a state from interfering in commerce taking place across state lines.
The problem with Raich and Wickard (et al.) is not that they extend federal power, but rather that they invent it of whole cloth.
Yes that giant truck hole opened by Wickard that has become a catch all that means the federal government can regulated anything
However the actual wording is "to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States", the original intent to was to give power to congress to regulate how commerce is conducted between the states, i.e prevent the coastal states from having tariffs against the internal states, and prevent the internal states from having export taxes on gains, etc etc etc
The original intent was not to allow the congress regulate individual commercial transactions by citizens that happen to cross state lines.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. It’s not that the feds must somehow regulate interstate commerce, it’s that the states can’t. The 21st carves out an exception.
Federal government's gotten too big, and operates outside of the boundaries the Constitution outlines (Commerce Clause? More like "we do what we want clause").
This should very clearly be a state issue, at most. Federal government has no business making these decisions.
Lemme guess - they didn't implement a gradual introduction of this policy, meaning that suddenly tons of people who could legally smoke won't be able to do so. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, yet the article doesn't really say.
The federal government does not have the power to regulate interstate commerce, as you're describing, under the constitution. The federal government has the power to ensure that no states forbid the importation of other states goods, or apply duties or tariffs to them. You're using "regulate" in the modern form and applying it to language that was written when the term had a different meaning. "Well regulated militia" means a militia free of encumbrances such that it can be functional, not one with a lot of extra-legislative rules applied to it. This is logical if you think about it- if they wanted the militia to be regulated, they would have laid out the ways he militia should be regulated, or at least enumerated the power to regulate the militia, in the enumerated powers clause. They did not. Further, "regulations" as we commonly understand them, are forbidden by the constitution, which explicitly denies the legislative branch the power to delegate its power to unelected bodies or to other branches.
The fist amendment states, "congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech". Blocking access to websites clearly violates that. Thus congress is explicitly in violation of the constitution, without regard to anything any court might say. Further, US Code 18-242 makes it a crime (a felony if one is armed) to violate the constitutional rights of any citizen. This means that passing SOPA would be, itself, a crime, at least in my interpretation.
The "shouting fire in a crowded theater" example does not refute the protections for free speech. In that case, the crime is not speaking the word fire while inside a theater, but in causing a panic, which is quite different.
I'm sure the word "Fire" can be heard, often shouted, on broadway quite regularly, when the author of the play included it in the dialogue.
I suggest that you take some time and read the constitution in its entirety. In fact, even better would be to get one of the many books that cover its writing, including citations of the intents and comments of the writers and past editions. The constitution is quite readable and quite explicit.
It is also quite different from the result after "years of jurisprudence" and precedent, which, like I pointed out in my original post, suffer from the intrinsic corruption endemic to government.
As Lysander Spooner once said, "either the constitution authorized such government as we have, or it has failed to prevent it." No ruling of any judge can overrule what is said in the constitution, and the constitution does not need to be interpreted very much, it is quite straight forward.
The reason it is this way is that the founding fathers were no fools. They knew judges and politicians would use emotion, expidents and pressures to try and change the system for their ends. It is a testament to their foresight that the system has lasted as long as it has, but they knew it would ultimately fail.
Thus they wrote a constitution that any american could read and comprehend, and they were quite clear that americans needed to take up arms against their government to ensure that the government remained restrained by the constitution:
"The tree of liberty must be renewed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants, it is its natural manure."
To the extent that our government bears little resemblance to the one outlined by this document, our government is one that is not authorized by the document, and thus wholly illegitimate. No amount of laws or court rulings can change this.
To the extent that this divergence has persisted, we as a people have failed to uphold the vigilance that was required of us.
Hierarchy simply means an arrangement between people with division of roles. Corporations are hierarchies but they are not governments.
There is a key difference. Governments impose their will on those who are subjugated by force, with violence. If you're subject to the rule of a government you don't have a choice, even when the government is violating your rights (as it would be with SOPA).
This is not the case with corporations, as employees, customers and owners of corporations all participate in the hierarchy on a voluntary basis. You are free to boycott them, resign your position, or sell your shares, if you disagree with the policies of the corporation.
You have almost no recourse when you disagree with government.
People can live in peace, and they can do it without governments, and they have successfully for centuries, under quite a variety of arrangements. The only reason for the prevalence of government we see today is the technology of warfare gave small bands of people the power to conquer and subjugate larger populations.
But it is not the natural state of man, any more than other forms of slavery were a natural state when they were more prevalent.... and slavery in the form practiced in the United States in the past, and elsewhere in the world has lasted essentially as long as governments.... for exactly the same reason.
It has implications for other things too. For example, the post office. How about 50 individual post offices instead of a national post office since now logically the price of a stamp cannot be adjusted unless Congress votes on it, etc.
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