How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution – Part 5
by By Rob Natelson Commentary The first, second, third, and fourth installments of this series described how the Constitution established a relatively small federal government with limited powers and how ...
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The Meaning of “Regulate Commerce” to the Constitution’s Ratifiers
By: Rob Natelson, Published on: Feb 7, 2024 Constitutional Background The constitutional justification for much of the federal regulatory and administrative apparatus rests on either of two very wide interpretations of ...
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New Study Finds Administrative State Unconstitutional
By: Rob Natelson The constitutional basis for most federal regulations is the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause. A new historical study shows, however, that the Interstate Commerce Clause is nowhere near as ...
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How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution Part V: Killing Economic Freedom
By: Rob Natelson The first, second, third, and fourth installments in this series described how the Constitution established a relatively small federal government with limited powers and how President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal challenged that ...
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Does Biden’s OSHA vaccination mandate exceed federal authority?
On November 12, a federal appeals court suspended the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) order fining businesses with 100 or more employees for each employee unvaccinated against COVID-19. This is one ...
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Constitutional Sleight of Hand: The Evolution of Implied Powers
By: Bob Fiedler or at Categorical Podcast The U.S. Constitution is a truly unique instrument — not least for its place as a written, and therefore limited grant of authority to ...
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Neither Necessary nor Proper
It was sixteen years ago last month that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Gonzales v. Raich (2005), ruled that the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801) did not exceed ...
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How One Landmark Case Shaped the Commerce Clause
By: Bob Fiedler In some ways, John Marshall’s opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden expanded federal power using expansive definitions of various words in the Commerce Clause. But future courts ignored an important limiting ...
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Three Supreme Court Cases that Twisted the Commerce Clause
By: Funky Euphemism Despite the words that make up the commerce clause and necessary and proper clause remaining constant over the past two centuries, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of their ...
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Where were all the Constitution’s defenders when the feds raised the smoking age?
By: Rob Natelson On December 20, President Trump signed legislation purporting to impose a single national age of 21 for selling tobacco products. Obviously, the measure reduces the freedom of ...
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