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by pfannkuchen 1105 days ago
Everyone reading this who isn’t familiar with Wickard v. Filburn please look it up on Wikipedia. Greater awareness of it would be really helpful. It is a blatantly insane interpretation and a huge amount of power at the federal level is built on top of it.
1 comments
mrguyorama 1105 days ago
Even if you don't enjoy that interpretation of

"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"

You cannot deny that "among the several states" can be interpreted to mean congress can regulate commerce in the states.

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pfannkuchen 1105 days ago
I’m not sure what you mean? I think that pretty clearly refers to commerce between states. How are you interpreting it differently? They just really casually and implicitly gave the feds the power to regulate all interpersonal transactions within each state? I think they would have said that explicitly if they meant it, no?
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mrguyorama 1105 days ago
"Among the several states" does not conclusively disallow congress from regulating intrastate commerce in my opinion. How does "among" restrict the regulation only to things going between the states? What definition of "among" limits the rest of the clause to only certain interactions involving commerce flowing through multiple of the states?

If I regulate commerce specifically in the state of Virginia, which is a member of the set of states, IMO I am regulating commerce among the states. The rest of that section of the constitution is all about how the Government's laws should be equal across all states, ie there is no favoritism, so that also leads me to believe this could be about keeping the government fair, rather than limited.

Keep in mind a huge point of the Constitution superseding the articles of confederation was that interstate activities were a pain in the ass and trade treaties were a dumpster fire. Giving congress final say over trade in the Union is absolutely compatible with that. It was not a document about keeping the Feds out of the business of the states. It was entirely about giving the federal government MORE power over the affairs of the states because the previous federal government was basically useless and at the whims of powerful state governors who absolutely did not want to stop being the kings of their little fiefdoms.

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