The Limits of the Commerce Clause
By Radley Balko asks:
Putting aside what’s codified Bill of Rights, which was ratified after the main body of the Constitution, do you believe the Constitution puts any restrictions on the powers of the federal government?
Well, I don’t really see the Bill of Rights as a mere aside; these limitations are very important. But that said, to play the mild contrarian I don’t actually have any objection to U.S. v. Lopez. When a statute is not a regulation of economic activity, has no jurisdictional hook, has no necessary connection to a broader regulatory regime, and Congress can’t be bother to explain what the connection to interstate commerce is or why federal action is necessary…I don’t really have a problem with the Supreme Court ruling the statue as beyond Congress’s authority. And while I disagree with United States v. Morrison, this is primarily because I strongly reject the narrow conception of Congress’s enforcement power under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. I have no problem saying that the commerce clause limits federal ability to intervene in purely local crime enforcement.
Now, I assume the libertarian response will be that this isn’t much, and…this is right. I don’t think in a modern industrial economy there’s any point in the Supreme Court trying to make distinctions between “local” and “national” economic regulations.
One thing I would add, though, is that saying that the Court should not strike down economic regulations under a narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause is not to say that the power of Congress is unlimited. As many of you know, Madison did not feel that “parchment barriers” were the most important protection against excessive government. Rather, he felt that an institutional design featuring multiple veto points was the central protection. And, in fact, Madisonian institutions have been effective — from my non-libertarian perspective, often much too effective — in limiting the authority of the federal government to regulate the economy. I think these limits are (more than) sufficient, and having the courts try to apply a conception of economic powers more meaningful in an 18th-century agrarian economy doesn’t make any sense.