Posted on 07/26/2007 6:09:35 AM PDT by zencat
A mid-air collision killing 300 people is "a necessary side-effect"? So that's what they mean by the price of freedom!
"If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause"
They're not regulating this under the Commerce Clause, so we can ignore this argument. If they were, I would agree.
"Regulating respondents’ conduct, however, is not “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” Congress’ restrictions on the interstate drug trade"
Yes it is. Justice Scalia's separate opinion in the same case is an excellent rebuttal.
30 years before Gonzales v Raich, Congress included a finding in the Controlled Substances Act. The Congressional finding (posted at #175) states that "local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances".
Now, excuse me, but who is Clarence Thomas that he can ignore a Congressional finding? Did he do his own research and come to a different conclusion? Do we want the U.S. Supreme Court doing this?
Congress has special competence over fact-finding, and it is not for the Court to substitute its judgment for Congress’. The U.S. Supreme Court is limited to findings of law, not fact. They are to answer the question, "Is the LAW, as written, constitutional"?
Justice Thomas needs to review KATZENBACH v. MORGAN, 384 U.S. 641 (1966), where the U.S. Supreme Court concluded, "It is not for us to review the congressional resolution of these factors. It is enough that we be able to perceive a basis upon which the Congress might resolve the conflict as it did."
And now we arrive where we arrive everytime we have this exchange: I subscribe to the original view of Framers about the proper roles of federal vs. state government and the danger of federal overreach; you subscribe to a different view that more often sees government as the solution, not the problem.
Never the twain shall meet. Cheers.
Blah, blah. That explains your views, it doesn't defend them.
Cheers.
And the chief statist on FR uses the supremacy clause to justify the feds involvement on the drug issue in this thread. However it doesn't apply to the 2nd amendment. So much for his argument that the 2nd is protected only by state constitutions.
Pretty pathetic.
"-- Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana.
If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."
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In Article III section 2, the U.S. Supreme Court is charged with "appellate Jurisdiction, both of law, and fact" in cases that come before it.
They are there to answer both legal and factual questions, IE, -- is the basis used for the law [congressional findings], constitutional, - as written?
Granted, Congress has the power to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court doing this by making exceptions and regulations to the Courts jurisdiction. -- And indeed, even though Congress claims a special competence over fact-finding, this power is not exempt from constitutional restraints.
That is, if you can agree that the 10th Amendment applies to Congress. Some here irrationally refuse to do so.
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