THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE LIE

By Michael LeMieux
December 18, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

The federal government was not designed to be a bureaucracy that had, for the most part, any direct effect on the populace of the country. In fact, the only power granted by the Constitution to the federal government lay in ensuring that government did not trespass against the citizens. It was the responsibility of the individual states to deal with the needs of the people. Federal legislative control was designed only to have jurisdiction within the District of Columbia and the areas ceded by the states to the federal government for forts, (and other federal sites as needed) or to make laws dealing with interstate commerce or dealing with foreign nations. Since the federal government was created, it has slowly and methodically grown in size and scope until it has permeated every aspect of our lives. Thomas Jefferson stated: "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have .... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." I believe the current federal position towards its citizens has proven this axiom to be all too true.

From the writings of the founding fathers, we know that the federal government’s powers, defined by the constitution, were to be limited and general and were not to be used against the citizens of the several states. James Madison, in Federalist 45 said, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." Notice that all of these items deal with generalities of government and with national and foreign issues, not individual issues.

One premise I want to point out is that no authority/power can be legally granted to any office of the federal government that cannot be tied directly to the U.S. Constitution. Any law, power, or authority that cannot be tied directly to the Constitution is automatically reserved to the states or to the people, and the federal government is prohibited to exercise outside of this restriction. Secondly, it is the responsibility of the states and the people to keep watch and to correct the government if it steps outside of its authority.

One example of admitted governmental overreach is United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) in which Mr. Lopez was walking near a school in San Antonio, Texas. Lopez had in his position a concealed .38 caliber handgun and 5 cartridges. He was charged with violating the federal Gun Free School Zone Act of 1990, 18 U.S.C. 922(q). He argued that the federal government had no legal authority to act, and no jurisdiction, within the boundaries of the state.

The governments’ argument was that carrying a gun near schools leads to violent acts and has an adverse affect on the area, and it thereby negatively affects commerce. They also stated that having crimes in the vicinity of schools leads to poorer learning, due to fear of the guns, which leads to a weaker economy, and thereby, negatively affects commerce. With this kind of circular logic, any area in the United States could be placed under the jurisdiction of the Federal regime.

Correctly, the Supreme Court did not see it this way. The Court determined that the Commerce Clause did allow the Federal Government broad lawmaking powers, but they were not unlimited powers, and they did not apply to carrying handguns. (How many federal handgun laws are there?) They further specified that there was no evidence that carrying handguns affected the economy on a massive scale.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the opinion of the court stating that Congress had the power to regulate only the channels of commerce, the instrumentalities of commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even if the threat comes from intrastate activities, and action that substantially affects interstate commerce. He further commented that since the Constitution created enumerated powers by which Congress was bound, they could not have such broad reaching powers.

He concluded that:

“To uphold the Government's contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.

This is a great finding, which reiterates; that Congress must stay within the bounds set by the Constitution, and to do otherwise, would be to convert the Commerce Clause into a police power. The part I find troublesome is the courts unwillingness to make a distinction between what is national and local jurisdiction, as this will do nothing but embolden Congress to continue in its expansion of power and have only to worry about losing the occasional case. In fact the court fully admitted knowing the federal government had limited scope but had decided to allow “long steps… giving great deference to congressional action.â€