[marktwain]

This argument, that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government the power to regulate everything, renders the interstate commerce clause meaningless. If interstate commerce means all commerce, then the writers of the Constitution would have said "commerce", not "interstate commerce".

However, this nullification of the interstate commerce clause is one of the main pillars of the "progressive" program.

[screaminsunshine]

“Could” jump state lines??? It is only Interstate Commerce “When” it jumps state lines.

[KarlInOhio]

The original purpose of the interstate commerce clause was not to give the federal government control over all interstate commerce or actions which could relate to interstate commerce, but to prevent states from restricting and taxing it like they had been doing under the Articles of Confederation.

If I were given the power to edit the Constitution, it is one of the first few things I would change to explicitly return it to its original purpose.

[Clint Williams]

Congress can regulate anything that could jump state lines.

Funny, I don't see that in the constitution. But it doesn't really matter: too many did too little for way too long and as a result we now live in a growing tyranny.

Thanks for nothing, folks.

America -- a great idea, didn't last.

[Logical me]

Communists America is here and well.

[Still Thinking]

Ping!

[Carry_Okie]

If interstate commerce means all commerce, then the writers of the Constitution would have said "commerce", not "interstate commerce".

Correct. The clause was meant to abolish interstate tariffs, nothing more.

This will make for an interesting test.

[MamaTexan]

Most make the same claim: that the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government power to regulate commerce between states but doesn't permit interference in purely local affairs.

They'd still be wrong.

Mr. MADISON was surprised that any gentleman should return to the clauses which had already been discussed. He begged the gentleman to read the clauses which gave the power of exclusive legislation, and he might see that nothing could be done without the consent of the states. With respect to the supposed operation of what was denominated the sweeping clause, the gentleman, he said, was mistaken; for it only extended to the enumerated powers. Should Congress attempt to extend it to any power not enumerated, it would not be warranted by the clause. As to the restriction in the clause under consideration, it was a restraint on the exercise of a power expressly delegated to Congress; namely, that of regulating commerce with foreign nations.
U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875
Elliot's Debates, Volume 3, page 455

Madison himself said the consent of the States was required and that the power to regulate commerce was an external power, NOT an internal one.

Congress can direct goods coming from overseas to the various ports of the States so the States with ports get a relatively equal share of 'income' taxes.

That's ALL the Constituion allows for.

[Ken H]

One legal scholar is citing Scalia's opinion in Raich in defending Obamacare from a constitutional challenge. Charles Fried, Solicitor General 1985-1989 and Harvard Law professor was on Greta Van Susteren, 04/14/2010:

______________________________________

FRIED:The statute which I have front of me, I bothered to read it, says that the health insurance industry is an $854 billion dollar industry. That sounds like commerce.

The Supreme Court just five years ago with Justice Scalia in the majority said that it is all right under the Commerce Clause to make it illegal for California for residents in California to grow pot for their own use, because that has affect on interstate commerce.

Well, if that has affect on interstate commerce, what happens in an $854 billion national industry certainly does.

-snip-

FRIED: I daresay that, because I looked at that 2005 lawsuit about the pot in California. If somebody growing pot in their basement is interstate commerce and Scalia said so, I don't know where you are going to get five votes the other way.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591103,00.html

[Recovering_Democrat]

Later this year, the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which proclaims that guns manufactured in Montana and sold in state are not subject to federal rules such as background checks, is slated to become the first of these Obama-era commerce challenges tested in court. But the case...[is] doomed to fail, as will similar rebukes.

That's because...Congress can regulate anything that could jump state lines.

I don't think that was the intention of the Founding Fathers. I think the 10th Amendment is in the Constitution for a damn good reason.

NewsWEAK is losing readers because they are irrelevant, and this article is another evidence of their lame, parochial, closed minded thinking.

[redgolum]

Well, they are launching the propaganda.

Just wait till the filibuster is removed. There will be a gun ban bill hitting Bambi’s desk within a week.

[Oldpuppymax]

“Newsweek” cheering for the left. Am I shocked!

[bamahead]

The same argument Newsweak makes here was used in the 2005 SCOTUS Medical Marijuana case. In that decision, the SCOTUS seemed to grant the FedGov license to regulate ANYTHING that MIGHT cross state lines as 'interstate commerce'...whether it actually crossed or not.

The only difference here, is that there's not a 'Constitutional Amendment' explicitly protecting your access to medicines. We'll see if this matters to the SCOUTS.



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[stephenjohnbanker]

These “pearls of wisdom” brought to you, by Newsweek.....which is so popular with Americans, it lost 46 million last year.

Will it cease publication soon? One can only pray ;-)

[Jack Black]

This argument, that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government the power to regulate everything, renders the interstate commerce clause meaningless.

No, it actually renders the entire Constitution meaningless. The whole point of the Constitution was to set up the mechanism of the government, the rules the government must follow, and the limitations on the government.

Article One is all about setting up the Congress. Towards the end we get to Section 8. Section 8 is often referred to as the 'enumerated powers', that means it is a list of what things the Congress may legitimately make laws about. The very first power enumerated is this:

The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

This is the misused "general welfare clause". It doesn't say the government can pass any laws to support the general welfare (the lib claim), it says that taxes have to be for the general welfare (not for the upkeep of some special favored group or well connected individual, as had been done under the British.)

The 'tards are clearly lying when they stretch this to cover all the things they use if for.

The second great 'tard lie about the constituion is the so-called "commerce clause". It's also part of the 'enumerated powers'. It reads, in full:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

This, too, was not blanket right to Congress to regulate all commerce everywhere in the USA. This becomes very obvious when you take one step back, and look at Section 8 in its entirity:

Section 8

The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be 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, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

That's it. That is the FULL AND COMPLETE list of things that the Congress of the United States is authorized to pass laws concerning. Thus, 90% of the current government is illegal.

• The Congress of the United States is not authorized to set up manditory retirement systems and to compel citizen participation in them.

• The Congress of the United States is not authorized to provide foreign aid to other countires.

• The Congress of the United States is not authorized to create milage requirements for automobile manufacturers in the United States.

• The Congress of the United States is not authorized to compell individuals to buy health insurance

• The Government of the United States is not authorized to buy, price support, and force farmer participation in the sales of agricultural commodities.

• The Congress of the United States is not authorized to pass laws forcing communities to provide free housing for the poor, much less to erect and manage such housing, acting as landlord for many millions of state residents.

I could, literally, go on all day.

This is the terrible secret of the US Constitution that even many Conservatives don't want to admit. The existing government of the US is largely illegal (unconstitutional).

This is the huge threat to the entire liberal edifice: Five Supreme Court justices could remove it all at once. Everything from FDR on could, and should, be ruled null and void and ended. SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, all of it.

This is why the 'tards will fight like a cornered rat to keep the SC packed with libs. That is the life support system for Federal Occupation Government that has usurped and replaced the legitimate Constitutional Government of these United States.

[Bellagio]

"That's because no state is an island (Hawaii included), and Congress can regulate anything that could jump state lines. It's a category, says George Mason University professor Nelson Lund, a Second Amendment scholar, that excludes almost nothing—certainly not pot and guns."

Oh, ok professor Lund. So now we need statist scholars to explain to us confused simple-minded-serfs what is sooo complicated and out of our mental comprehension capabilities. Our constitution wasn't written in confusing vague half sentences. It was written with obvious meaning and intent.

Liberal US Constitution scholars (idiots, liars and experts in playing semantics) are only needed by progressives to obfuscate the true intent and meaning of the law within the constitution.

It doesn’t take rocket science to refute clowns like Nelson Lund.

In his 1913 book, The Framing of the Constitution, Max Farrand explained, in part, why this provision was incorporated into the Constitution:

“Pending a grant of power to congress over matters of commerce, the states acted individually. A uniform policy was necessary, and while a pretense was made of acting in unison to achieve a much desired end, it is evident that selfish motives frequently dictated what was done. Any state which enjoyed superior conditions to a neighboring state was only too apt to take advantage of that fact. Some of the states, as James Madison described it, ‘having no convenient ports for foreign commerce, were subject to be taxed by their neighbors, through whose ports their commerce was carried on.’… The Americans were an agricultural and trading people. Interference with the arteries of commerce was cutting off the very life-blood of the nation and something had to be done.”

I totally agree that the purpose of the words “regulate commerce… among the several States” was to insure the free passage of goods between the individual States. During the debates in the Federal [Constitutional] Convention of 1787 on this provision, Oliver Ellsworth stated:

“The power of regulating trade between the States will protect them against each other.”

James Madison reiterated this point in the Convention: “[P]erhaps the best guard against an abuse of the power of the States on this subject was the right in the General Government to regulate trade between State and State.

In The Federalist, essay No. 45, Madison asserted that the Commerce Clause was a harmless power that no one really opposed:

“If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL powers. The regulations of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”

In light of the heated debates that raged following the close of the Federal Convention concerning the extent of the powers delegated to the federal government, it is inconceivable that there were no apprehensions or serious opposition to a clause that allegedly granted the federal government unlimited regulatory power.

Thomas Jefferson, in 1791, stated that Congress was not granted the power to regulate commerce within the several States:

“[T]he power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a state, [that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,] which remains exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another state, or with foreign nations, or with Indian tribes.”

The Commerce Clause granted Congress the power to make regular or normalize commerce between individual State and individual State. It did not grant Congress the general power to control individuals or private business engaged in commerce. This fact is substantiated by the 13th Amendment passed in 1865 (banning slavery), the 18th Amendment passed in 1919 (banning intoxicating liquors), and the 21st Amendment passed in 1933 (repealing the ban on intoxicating liquors). All of these amendments involved commerce, yet Congress realized that it took a constitutional amendment before it had the power to legislate in these areas.

[fabian]

Screw the “courts”...we know what our right are better than the federal government does!

[Who is John Galt?]

This argument, that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government the power to regulate everything, renders the interstate commerce clause meaningless. If interstate commerce means all commerce, then the writers of the Constitution would have said "commerce", not "interstate commerce".

As Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his irrefutable dissent in GONZALES V. RAICH:

"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."

The greatest failure of the last Bush administration was the President's failure to nominate Mr. Justice Thomas to be Chief Justice...

[Force of Truth]

There is no point in criminalizing or even regulating Marijuana. 1 in 100 adults in America is in either jail or prison. No surprise we are in an economic turmoil at this point, because a good portion of the workforce is either incarcerated or has a black mark on their record that keeps them from getting any meaningful work. Employers have less of a pool of what they consider good employees to chose from, because of a piece of paper that says a person is worthless.