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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 …
Federalism And The Commerce Clause: A Comparative Perspective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Federalism And The Commerce Clause: A Comparative Perspective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
The U.S. Supreme Court has on numerous occasions addressed the constitutionality of state taxes under the U.S. Constitution (most often under the Commerce Clause, but sometimes under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses). In general, the Supreme Court has granted wide leeway to the states to adopt any tax system they wish, only striking down the most egregious cases of discrimination against out-of-state residents. Thus, for example, the Court has generally refused to intervene against state tax competition to attract business into the state. It has twice upheld a method of calculating how much income of a multinational enterprise …
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 …
A Government Of Limited Powers, Carl E. Schneider
A Government Of Limited Powers, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
Roscoe C. Filburn owned a small farm in Ohio where he raised poultry, dairy cows, and a modest acreage of winter wheat. Some wheat he fed his animals, some he sold, and some he kept for his family's daily bread. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 limited the wheat Mr. Filburn could grow without incurring penalties, but his 1941 crop exceeded those limits. Mr. Filburn sued. He said Claude Wickard, the Secretary of Agriculture, could not enforce the AAI's limits because Congress lacked authority to regulate wheat grown for one's own use. He reasoned: In our federal system, the states …
The Sometimes-Bumpy Stream Of Commerce Clause Doctrine (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman
The Sometimes-Bumpy Stream Of Commerce Clause Doctrine (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The title of this essay is a somewhat feeble use of an unoriginal pun.' I am not talking about the doctrine of the stream, but about the stream of the doctrine. That is, my principal subject is not the "stream of commerce doctrine," but rather the historical development of the doctrine governing Congress's power under the Commerce Clause in the twentieth century, and especially in the years centering on the New Deal. My basic thesis is this: Although the doctrine developed rapidly in the New Deal era, there were no major discontinuities in it. That does not mean that it …
"Charting The Course Of Commerce Clause Challenge (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman
"Charting The Course Of Commerce Clause Challenge (Symposium: The Commerce Clause: Past, Present, And Future), Richard D. Friedman
Articles
Recognizing Barry Cushman's formidable skills in both research and argument, and his enormous wealth of knowledge, I have long known that I would much rather be on the same side of an issue with him than on the opposite side. And I am glad that we have been on the same side of an important issue, for both of us doubt that Franklin Roosevelt's Court-packing plan had much to do with the constitutional transformation of the 1930s. But now I have expressed disagreement with some propositions he has asserted, and I have made some assertions with which he disagrees, he …
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
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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 …
Putting The Dormancy Doctrine Out Of Its Misery, Richard D. Friedman
Putting The Dormancy Doctrine Out Of Its Misery, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
Justice Antonin Scalia has put on the academic table the question of whether the doctrine of the dormant commerce clause should be abandoned. That is a significant contribution, for this is an issue that should be debated thoroughly. But Justice Scalia's campaign against the doctrine has been notably ambivalent. On the one hand, he argues that the doctrine lacks justification in constitutional text, history, and theory.1 On the other hand, assertedly feeling the pressure of stare decisis,2 he has gone along with, and even led, applications of the doctrine, although within narrow limits.3 In this essay, I argue that Justice …
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 …