Commerce Clause

[Emsworth]

I favor a narrow interpretation, compared to the perversions of the modern Supreme Court. But not too narrow: John Marshall's interpretation is reasonable, and, being precedent, should be respected.

Furthermore, just because a business operates in more than one state, Congress is not justified in regulating every single aspect of that business. Only the actual commerce may be regulated, by which I mean the production, navigation, and sale of goods, and closely related activities. Tangential matters, like the wages paid to the workers, are not covered.

[Emsworth]

1. Price controls: No
2. Banning a specific good or service: No
3. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: No
4. Anti-trust laws: Yes (if interstate)
5. Minimum wage: No
6. Coining money: No
7. Establishing uniform bankruptcy laws: No (personal bankruptcy has no effect on commerce)
8. Establishing post offices and post roads: No (building a road does not "regulate" anything)
9. Punishing counterfeit currency: No

[Emsworth]

You don't seem to understand what I'm getting at. The point is that any interpretation of the commerce clause that would allow these things to be done, must be incorrect, by virtue of the fact that the framers saw fit to include them separately.

The more broad powers can, however, overlap, especially if we include the general welfare and the elastic clauses.

[Emsworth]

3. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Yes, though, probably, exception should be made for companies that do not trade accross state lines (including not importing or exporting any goods, not hiring any labor, not serving any customers, etc. outside their home state, nor competing against any companies that do). The reason, of course, that otherwise companies operating in a single state would get an unfair advantage against their competitors operating in multiple states, which, clearly, would severely affect interstate commerce.

The ADA, like the Civil Rights Act, does not seek to regulate the commercial aspect, but rather seeks to prevent discrimination; but, the goal, although laudable, is not one that the federal government is constitutionally entitled to pursue.

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In this case, the government is not regulating interstate commerce at all.

[Emsworth]

3. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 - Not under interstate commerce, but can be done under Congressional enforcement of the 14th Amendment

The 14th amendment does not restrict private entities.

Precisely: and the Supreme Court agreed in the Civil Rights Cases, IIRC.

[Emsworth]

I favor a narrow interpretation, compared to the perversions of the modern Supreme Court. But not too narrow: John Marshall's interpretation is reasonable, and, being precedent, should be respected.

Marshall's definition of commerce was the shipping of goods. Production and sale would not necessarily be covered under that interpretation.

No, I disagree. He seems to admit in Gibbons v. Ogden that buying and selling (if not production) are included.

[Emsworth]

Excerpts? What part of the ruling?

Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to provide them in my previous post:

"The mind can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between nations which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation, which shall be silent on the admission of the vessels of the one nation into the ports of the other, and be confined to prescribing rules for the conduct of individuals in the actual employment of buying and selling or of barter."

He appears to accept that buying and selling are governable under the commerce clause (presumably with the proviso that the buying and selling is related to "commerce among the states").

Similarly:

"Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more - it is intercourse."

He agrees that commerce is more than the mere transfer of goods from place to place.