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by cabaalis 3113 days ago
Funny, I was listening to oral arguments on the Supreme Court last night on the way home from work. I'm not a lawyer, but my layman interpretation of what they were arguing (specifically in reference to sports betting) is that if the federal government chooses not to regulate something, they cannot also preempt state regulations.

I reserve to right to have completely misunderstood the legalese that I was hearing :)
1 comments
24gttghh 3113 days ago
I believe the 10th Amendment covers what you are thinking of.

>The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

If the Federal government chooses not to regulate it, then the states should be allowed to do so.

Edit: Here the FCC is choosing to not regulate Telecoms as "Common Carriers", so would not the states then be allowed to do so, barring other federal agencies that may be able to regulate "Common Carriers" (ala the FTC)? Honest question.

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CalChris 3113 days ago
The 10th Amendment is not well regarded by the Supreme Court. In US v Sprague the Court said it “added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified“.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Sprague

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hermitdev 3113 days ago
Additionally, I think one could easily argue that the interstate commerce clause would prevail as States attempting to regulate interstate commerce. Otherwise, they could only enforce net-neutrality on connections entirely contained within their own state (good luck showing that's the case).
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atomi 3113 days ago
A lot of Services are headquartered in California: Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Hulu, Yahoo, Dropbox, Reddit, Imgur et al. These services could well band together and lobby very influentially to regulate neutral access to all in-state broadband traffic. I don't think it would be very smart for the telecoms to push their tier garbage in California.
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24gttghh 3113 days ago
I'm missing how that case relates to the 10th amendment, as it seems to primarily deal with Article V.
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CalChris 3113 days ago
The appellees tried to use the 10th and the Court said no and then further said the 10th is basically a legal truism.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/282/716.html

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munk-a 3113 days ago
Sorry, by "legal truism" you mean inherently enforceable because it is reinforcing a point that is taken to be true without any sort of countermand?

Your statement seems self-contradictory.

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