Law Commons^™

The Commerce Power And Congressional Mandates, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, a five-Justice majority concluded that the commerce power did not support enactment of the so-called “individual mandate,” which imposes a penalty on many persons who fail to buy health insurance. That ruling is sure to spark challenges to other federal laws on the theory that they likewise mandate individuals or entities to take certain actions. Federal laws founded on the commerce power, for example, require mine operators to provide workers with safety helmets and (at least as a practical matter) require mine workers to wear them. Some analysts will say that laws …

Quick Change Justice, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

Popular Media

The architecture of the U.S. Supreme Court Building is rife with turtles. There are turtles holding up the lampposts in the courtyard and turtles engraved in the stone decor. You can buy turtle coffee mugs at the gift shop. The turtle is said to represent the slow and deliberate pace of justice. This is an institution, the turtle tells us, that moves slowly, deliberately, and removed from the knee-jerk pace of the political branches.

Yet moments before they adjourned for their summer recess, the justices proved they can act quite quickly and recklessly when it comes to violating the terms …