Law Commons^™

The New Commerce Clause Doctrine In Game Theoretical Perspective, Maxwell L. Stearns

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Roberts Court emerges at a critical juncture in the development of Commerce Clause doctrine. While the Commerce Clause doctrine implicates federalism and separation of powers, concerns rooted in the earliest part of our constitutional history, the arrival of a new Court presents an ideal opportunity to critically assess existing doctrines and to develop new analytical paradigms. An analysis of Commerce Clause doctrine reveals that while the Rehnquist Court successfully imposed substantive limits on the scope of this important source of congressional power for the first time in sixty years, that Court was far less successful in developing a coherent …

State User Fees And The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

Vanderbilt Law Review

The law takes shape as great principles collide in the context of concrete cases. In the field of constitutional law, the task of reconciling key precepts falls, of necessity, to the Supreme Court. Indeed, much of the Court's work involves delineating the borders of competing constitutional principles that the Court itself has created.

This Article considers the interplay of two central tenets of the Court's dormant commerce clause jurisprudence. The first of these principles exempts from the general proscription on discrimination against interstate commerce a state's actions as a "market participant," rather than as a "market regulator."' The second principle, …

Recent Decision, Barbara K. Caldwell

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW--Commerce Clause--State Taxation of Aviation Fuel Used Exclusively in Foreign Commerce is Not Preempted by the Federal Aviation Act and is Not Invalid Under the Japan Line Doctrine of the Foreign Commerce Clause. "Wardair Canada, Inc. v. Florida Department of Revenue", 106 S. Ct. 2369 (1986).

Justice Stevens: The First Three Terms, George C. Lamb, Iii, Charles L. Schlumberger, D. J. Simonetti, James D. Spratt Jr., Joel R. Tew, Douglas W. Ey, Jr. Special Projects Editor

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Special Project undertakes an examination of Justice Stevens' Supreme Court opinions in an effort to identify his philosophical orientations, to evaluate the consistency of his views, and to determine the extent to which he has developed workable analytical methods. To achieve these goals, Justice Stevens' opinions are examined in three contexts: first, the area of federal-state relations,including commerce clause and supremacy clause questions; second, the individual rights area, emphasizing criminal constitutional and first amendment issues, and problems of fifth and fourteenth amendment analysis; and third, questions concerning the proper role of the Supreme Court in the constitutional scheme. Even …

Some Intersections Of The Negative Commerce Clause And The New Federalism, James F. Blumstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Much has been written about the change in the Supreme Court's judicial philosophy, as a new, ascendant majority has been able successfully to implement its emerging notions of judicial reticence and self-abnegation. This fundamental turnabout in judicial perspective is hardly coincidental, since it reflects the fulfillment of an oft-repeated campaign pledge of Richard Nixon, who in 1968 promised, if elected, to appoint so-called strict constructionists to the Court.' In a basic way his appointees have succeeded in modifying the activist stance that prevailed on the Court during much of the tenure of Earl Warren as Chief Justice. With notable exceptions …

State Taxation Under The Commerce Clause: An Historical Perspective, Jerome R. Hellerstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although Congress has plenary power under the commerce clause to regulate state taxation of interstate commerce, that power remained virtually unexercised until 1959. As a consequence of the silence of Congress, the task of reconciling the competing interests of states, multistate businesses, and local businesses, and accommodating those interests to the needs of a national economy fell by default to the Supreme Court. The instrumentality available to the Court for dealing with the complex political, fiscal, and economic controversies inherent in state taxation of multistate business was the commerce clause (augmented by due process restrictions and,to a lesser extent, the …

Motor Carrier Regulation--An Adventure In Federalism, Val Sanford

Vanderbilt Law Review

By virtue of the nature of our federal system every attempt to regulate extensive economic activity involves constantly recurring problems as to the proper allocation of governmental power between the state and national governments, and thus problems as to the proper balancing of local or state and national interests. The development of motor carrier regulation in the United States has been controlled by the general concepts of federalism and exemplifies the nature of the basic problems inherent in those concepts. The purpose of this article is to examine the regulation of motor carriers from the standpoint of the allocation of …

Analysis Of Sales And Use Tax Exemptions -- With Comment As To More Uniform Applications, George D. Brabson

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are, generally speaking, three broad areas of exemption understatutes imposing sales and use taxes in the United States. These are:

(a) Exemptions arising out of the immunities of governmental agencies and instrumentalities, or out of the exercise of governmental functions (b) Exemptions arising under the commerce clause of the federal constitution (c) Specific exemptions created out of governmental taxing policies or social economic considerations

Each of these areas of exemption has grown up somewhat haphazardly over a substantial period of time, and very largely as the result of shifting judicial opinion, rather than as a matter of consistent legislative …

Crosskey's Constitution: An Archeological Blueprint, Howard J. Graham

Vanderbilt Law Review

Could it be fortunate that so much of history is a closed, or at least a forbidden, book? Otherwise might we not squander our resources reliving and refighting the past? The present soon would be unendurable, the future an endless remarshalling yard for causes stretching back to antiquity.

If the first volumes of Professor Crosskey's study invite this somber opening reflection, it is not that his achievement is unimpressive. Here, undeniably, is a work in the great tradition of controversial writing. Few lawyers and certainly fewer historians--ever willingly have assumed greater burdens of proof. Yet fewer still have contrived a …