A Con-Con can give us the Communist Manifesto.
A simple amendment would be better.
Congress shall make no law governing the private economic actions of individuals.
or something like that.
38 states could not be found which would all pass a Communist Manifesto, Ms. Little.
GeronL wrote: “A simple amendment would be better. Congress shall make no law governing the private economic actions of individuals.”
The Constitution already does this with the 10th Amendment. The problem is the federal government did a power grab by making the commerce clause extend to regulating the people.
Read the Commerce clause closely: note the Capital “S” on the term States. Then read up the long discussion on the difference between “the State” and “the people” in Heller vs DC.
A strict interpretation of the commerce clause reads the feds can only regulate state entities interacting with other state entities. Nowhere does the language of the commerce clause give the fed power to declare its own prohibition without an amendment, nor does its authorize the federal government to regulate the people.
So an amendment like you suggested would be ignored, since they already ignore most of them anyway.
How about “All enumerated powers of the Congress of the United States under this Constitution and any Amendments thereto shall be narrowly construed. All prohibitions placed on the Congress of the United States shall be broadly construed. In particular, the authority granted to Congress to regulate commerce between the several states, Indian tribe and with foreign nations, shall not be construed to permit the regulation of any activity which is not itself commerce crossing state lines, the borders of the United States or the borders of areas under the sovereignty of Indian tribe merely on the plea that it affects such commerce. Upon ratification of this amendment any citizen shall have standing with the courts to challenge the Constitutionality of any statute on the basis that it fails to meet the narrow construal provision regarding enumerated powers, violates the broad construal of prohibitions, or had previously been upheld as Constitutional by the courts only on the basis that it regulated an activity which affected interstate commerce. All criminal convictions or civil forfeitures to the United States based on violation of laws found to be unconstitutional under the terms of this amendment shall be vacated immediately upon such finding.”
Yeah, I know, the drug warriors will all be upset since it will limit the feds to prohibiting importation or transportation of “controlled substances” across state lines, but that’s all they should have been able to do in the first place.