Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Most Revealing Word In The United States Report, Richard Primus
The Most Revealing Word In The United States Report, Richard Primus
Articles
The most prominent issue in NFIB v. Sebelius was whether Congress’s regulatory power under the Commerce Clause stops at a point marked by a distinction between “activity” and “inactivity.” According to the law’s challengers, prior decisions about the scope of the commerce power already reflected the importance of the distinction between action and inaction. In all of the previous cases in which exercises of the commerce power had been sustained, the challengers argued, that power had been used to regulate activity. Never had Congress tried to regulate mere inactivity. In NFIB, four Justices rejected that contention, writing that such …
The Gibbons Fallacy, Richard A. Primus
The Gibbons Fallacy, Richard A. Primus
Articles
In Gibbons v. Ogden, Chief Justice John Marshall famously wrote that "the enumeration presupposes something not enumerated." Modern courts use that phrase to mean that the Constitutions enumeration of congressional powers indicates that those powers are, as a whole, less than a grant of general legislative authority. But Marshall wasn't saying that. He wasn't talking about the Constitution's overall enumeration of congressional powers at all. He was writing about a different enumeration - the enumeration of three classes of commerce within the Commerce Clause. And Marshall's analysis of the Commerce Clause in Gibbons does not imply that the enumerated …
How The Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved The Individual Mandate, Richard A. Primus
How The Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved The Individual Mandate, Richard A. Primus
Articles
For all the drama surrounding the Commerce Clause challenge to the in-dividual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), the doctrinal question presented is simple. Under existing doctrine, the provision is as valid as can be. To be sure, the Supreme Court could alter existing doctrine, and many interesting things could be written about the dynamics that sometimes prompt judges to strike out in new directions under the pressures of cases like this one. But it is not my intention to pursue that possibility here. My own suspicion, for what it is worth, is that the …
Comparative Fiscal Federalism: What Can The U.S. Supreme Court And The European Court Of Justice Learn From Each Other's Tax Jurisprudence?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Comparative Fiscal Federalism: What Can The U.S. Supreme Court And The European Court Of Justice Learn From Each Other's Tax Jurisprudence?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
Last October, a group of distinguished tax experts from the European Union and the United States convened at the University of Michigan Law School for a conference on "Comparative Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the U.S. Supreme Court and European Court of Justice Tax Jurisprudence." The conference was sponsored by the Law School, the European Union Center, and Harvard Law School's Fund for Tax and Fiscal Research. Attendees from Europe included Michel Aujean, the principal tax official at the EU Commission, Servaas van Thie1, chief tax advisor to the EU Council, Michael Lang (Vienna) and Kees van Raad (Leiden), who run the …
Passport To Toledo: Cuno, The World Trade Organization, And The European Court Of Justice, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Passport To Toledo: Cuno, The World Trade Organization, And The European Court Of Justice, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
The purpose of this article is to try to place the debate about Cuno v. DaimlerChrysler in a broader perspective by connecting it with the overall discussion of harmful tax competition. It discusses two hypothetical scenarios under which the city of Toledo, Ohio, is (a) a separate country and (b) a member state of the European Union. If the first hypothetical were true, the tax incentives offered by Toledo would violate the rules of the World Trade Organization; if the second hypothetical were true, the tax incentives would also violate the Treaty of Rome, as interpreted by the European Court …
How To Think About The Federal Commerce Power And Incidentally Rewrite United States V. Lopez, Donald H. Regan
How To Think About The Federal Commerce Power And Incidentally Rewrite United States V. Lopez, Donald H. Regan
Articles
Almost sixty years after the "revolution" of 1937, we still do not have an adequate theory of the commerce power. The Court was right to abandon the theory of dual federalism epitomized by Carter v. Carter Coal Co.;' and it has got the right results in the major cases decided since then. But our post-1937 theory, whether before or after Lopez, is a mess. On the one hand, we have a collection of doctrinal rules that, if we take them seriously, allow Congress to do anything it wants under the commerce power. On the other hand, we continue to pay …
Siamese Essays: (I) Cts Corp. V. Dynamics Corp. Of America And Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine; (Ii) Extraterritorial State Legislation, Donald H. Regan
Siamese Essays: (I) Cts Corp. V. Dynamics Corp. Of America And Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine; (Ii) Extraterritorial State Legislation, Donald H. Regan
Articles
What follows is two essays, related as Siamese twins. Both essays developed from a single conception. They are distinct, but they remain connected by a shared subtopic. The first essay is about CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of America1 as a contribution to dormant commerce clause doctrine. The second essay is about the constitutional principle that states may not legislate extraterritorially, which I shall refer to as the "extraterritoriality principle." The shared subtopic is the extraterritoriality problem in CTS. (There is an extraterritoriality problem in CTS, even though the Court does not discuss it in those terms.) I could have …
The Supreme Court And State Protectionism: Making Sense Of The Dormant Commerce Clause, Donald H. Regan
The Supreme Court And State Protectionism: Making Sense Of The Dormant Commerce Clause, Donald H. Regan
Articles
For almost fifty years, scholars have urged the Court to "balance" in dormant commerce clause cases; and the scholars have imagined that the Court was following their advice. The Court has indeed claimed to balance, winning scholarly approval. But the Court knows better than the scholars. Despite what the Court has said, it has not been balancing. It has been following a simpler and better-justified course. In the central area of dormant commerce clause jurisprudence, comprising what I shall call "movement-of-goods" cases), the Court has been concerned exclusively with preventing states from engaging in purposeful economic protectionism. Not only is …