What do states’ rights, federalism, global warming and pixie dust have in common?
None of them exist. By abuse of the commerce clause, the Supreme Court (in Raich) has abandoned federalism and ruled (6-3) that sick or dying people can get arrested by the feds for smoking weed to alleviate pain even if state law allows it.
Good summary here.
Also, you know something is screwy when Howard Dean starts making sense.
And Mike is back and, man, is he angry. On the basis of the judgment:
A farmer, named Wickard, grew wheat on his own farm for his own use. This was in excess of what the federal government allowed him to grow, so they arrested him.
Think about that for a minute.
Wickard went to court, and lost. Why? The commerce clause, of course. Since the feds have the power to regulate interstate commerce, they therefore have the power to regulate how much a wheat a farmer grows for his own use. Incredibly, this was based on the logic that any wheat he grows for himself is wheat that he would have otherwise purchased! That means that his personal garden falls under the commerce clause, and the federal government can, and did, tell him exactly how much he could plant, and arrested him when he failed to comply.
And dissenting Justice Thomas writes:
If the majority [of the Supreme Court] is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States.
and
One searches the Court’s opinion in vain for any hint of what aspect of American life is reserved to the States.
Xrlq on Thomas:
Justice Thomas did not disappoint (except, of course, in the sense that he did disappoint the allegedly non-racist moonbats who expect him to vote reflexively with Justice Scalia every time) . . .
Radley Balko on Thomas:
He’s easily the most principled and consistent defender of federalism on the court.
In the last few years, the supreme court has quashed free speech; federalism; right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures; and states’ rights. I expect that property rights will be next.
Fuckers.
One of the plaintiffs has said she will defy the ruling:
“I’m going to have to be prepared to be arrested,” said Diane Monson, who smokes marijuana several times a day to relieve back pain.
June 16th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
[…] the high court. Well, let’s see. In the recent past, the SCOTUS has: Killed the commerce clause, federalism and states’ rights (states’ rights is a racist code […]
June 7th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Thanks for the link. If this case makes you mad, tell that to your fellow members of the “Coalition of the Chillin'” who think the recent Republican capitulation to filibustering Dems was no big deal. Bollocks, it’s a huge deal. If the Republicans had stuck to their guns and Spectre hadn’t stabbed them in the back, judicial filibusters would be history and there would be a very real chance President Bush would get to appoint two or three more Clarence Thomas types to the bench, and at least some chance yesterday’s precedent could be reversed within our lifetime. It will never happen now. Any appointee who is nearly principled enough to join yesterday’s dissenters is guaranteed to be filibustered by the Dems as an “extremist.”
June 7th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
But the filibuster is a double edged sword as getting rid of the filibuster would lead to more jackpot legislation, most of which would never be overturned in our lifetime either. Also, the end of the filibuster would be worse in 2008 when the Republicans lose ground (and i think they will).
June 7th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
X…I await the day that the Dems have control of the WH and Senate and you talk about the Republicans not filibustering Ramsay Clark’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
June 7th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
SU, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that getting rid of the judicial filibuster means no legislative filibuster, either. Certainly the constitutional argument behind the “constitutional option” does not assume that, as it applies only to the meaning of “advise and consent.”
Manish, I eagerly await the day that any Democrat is stupid enough to nominate Ramsey Clark to any office. If he does, I would hope the Senate has the good sense to “bork” him, but I wouldn’t put much stock in a Republican filibuster, which hasn’t stopped anyone since Abe Fortas.
June 7th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Good ol’ commerce clause! It sounds like it’s intended to promote free trade among the states, but apparently it serves just as well as an excuse to prohibit commerce. Some enterprising AG from a marijuana-producing state should argue that a federal ban on the crop acts as a defacto regulation against his state’s commercial activity. That might be a good project for the Alaska attorney general to fill up those long winter nights.
Thomas may have stood his ground this time around, but he had no problem invoking the equal protection clause to trample on state’s rights when it meant doing a favor for his wife’s employer.
June 7th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
Osama, being the small fish that he is could never could have done the damage to the American Republic this court has done in the last five years.
Every canary has been dead so long that they don’t even stink.
June 8th, 2005 at 12:45 am
For your information, pixie dust DOES exist! However, you are right about the rest of them. They don’t exist.
June 8th, 2005 at 12:49 am
This sounds like a great opportunity to nullify any state gun law that is more restrictive than the federal gun laws:
To quote the June 7, 2005 L.A. Times article…
“The Constitution makes the laws of the United States the ‘supreme law of the land,’ and ‘if there is any conflict between federal and state law, federal law shall prevail,’ Justice John Paul Stevens said for the court.”
June 8th, 2005 at 1:27 am
Xrlq:
Why not? What’s to stop the GOP from saying that the Democrats are abusing it again, and as such have gone back on their word, and re-introducing the measure to remove the judicial filibuster?
June 8th, 2005 at 10:06 am
The agreement itself, which explicitly provides that it’s up to each individual Senator to make his own subjective determination as to what is or isn’t an “extraordinary circumstance” justifying a filibuster.
June 8th, 2005 at 11:02 am
Any suggestions on what we – as a society – can do?
This has been going on for nearly 80 years now that the courts have been ignore the 9th & 10th Amendments like this. It is very disturbing.
I’d love to see a dialog to describe the exact problem and discuss possible solutions.