What it means to "regulate commerce"

by P.A. Madison (The Federalist Blog) - The federal government for years has claimed expansive powers under the authority to regulate commerce, so much, that the most innocent private activity can now come under federal control simply because it can be viewed as having an influence on "interstate commerce" (such as the wheat in your bread having come from another State). In the 1960s, Congress claimed the authority to ban discrimination in employment, public accommodations and more through the power to regulate commerce under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a press release in September of 2009 that read, in part: "[T]he Constitution gives Congress broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production. Since virtually every aspect of the heath care system has an effect on interstate commerce, the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited."

Such an assertion ignores, as the evidence below will show, that the regulation of commerce by design deals solely with duties and imposts on the intercourse of trade between Nations or States, which in return had absolutely nothing to do with regulating internal industries, labor or transactions. As Thomas Jefferson put it: "To make a thing which may be bought and sold is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every state, as to its external."

(Full article)

The right to travel pre-dates the TSA

Writes Michael S. Rozeff on the LewRockwell.com blog:

According to a UCLA Law Review source dating from 1975 and written by Stewart Abercrombie Baker, Magna Carta (ch. 42, 1215) "guaranteed free passage into and out of the realm." "Blackstone's Commentaries proclaims a right to travel which includes 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due process of law.'" (volume 1, *134). "The right to travel was declared ‘natural and inherent' by the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776″ (ch. 1, para. XV (1776)). Article IV of the Articles of Confederation protected "free ingress and regress to and from any other State…" The Constitution dropped that language and instead incorporated the right to travel under the privileges and immunities clause of article IV, section 2. "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." Baker writes: "The change was made not to disparage the right to travel, but because specific protection for the right would be redundant. Free travel was considered to be a necessary corollary to the 'more perfect Union' which the Constitution created." The Supreme Court has recognized this right in numerous cases.

I do not claim that the right to travel as interpreted by a Supreme Court of 2010 would allow the traveler unimpeded travel or prevent placing such a burden on the traveler that it would effectively foreclose travel by air. The Court would probably back the TSA and provide some sort of balancing test. I assert that such a test would be unconstitutional and would destroy the right to travel. I assert that the TSA's search procedures place a burden on the right to travel that destroys that right for millions of protesting Americans.

The TSA and other government agencies, however, are quick to remind us that traveling is merely a privilege.

Happy Constitution Day!

Congressman: "The federal government can do most anything in this country"

Obama administration files first defense of health care law in court

WASHINGTON (AP) - Critics who allege that Congress overstepped the U.S. Constitution by requiring Americans to carry health insurance are "flatly wrong," the Obama administration said Wednesday in its first court defense of the landmark health care law.

Congress acted well within its power to regulate interstate commerce and to provide for the general welfare, Justice Department lawyers argued in a 46-page brief filed in federal district court in Detroit. For the courts to overturn President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislation would amount to unwarranted interference with the policymaking authority of Congress, they added.

(Full story)