Gun Free School Zones and the Health Insurance Bill
A look at the commerce clause, which may as well not exist until a court decides it just doesn’t like something.
3 Responses to “Gun Free School Zones and the Health Insurance Bill”
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April 5th, 2010 at 9:42 am
If this thing makes it to SCOTUS I expect that it will be held constitutional.
Under Wickard v. Filburn and Gonzales v. Raich the Court practically gave the FedGov the ability to stick its nose in all economic activities. The GFSZA/Lopez case was about non-economic activity (transporting a handgun in a school zone) and that’s why it was struck down.
Since insurance/hospitals/health in general is 1/6th of the economy and the FedGov has intervened in it before (HMO Act, Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP) I don’t think the states have much of a case.
April 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
I think that the overall bill will not be struck down but pieces of it will be. It will look like a giant swiss cheese. If there are too many holes this already convoluted bill will have an even harder time functioning. If things go well it will end up being just a jumbled mass of dead end laws that cannot interconnect because pieces are ruled unconstitutional.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
“May as well not exist” is looking at the issue exactly backwards. The problem with the Commerce Clause is that courts have interpreted it to include almost everything. Without it, Congress would lose not only the power to regulate interstate commerce but also the power to do all that other crap that is only tangentially related to interstate commerce, but not at all related to Congress’s other enumerated powers.