United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 

Supreme Court of the United States

1995

Chapter

2

Title

Federalism At Work

Page

214

Topic

The Evolution of Commerce Clause Doctrine

Quick Notes

Lopez, a 12th grade student, was arrested for possessing a concealed handgun and bullets at his San Antonio high school.   The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (18 U.S.C. 922 (q)), Congress made it a federal offense for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe is a school zone.

Three Broach Categories that Congress may regulate under the Commerce Clause

U.S. Const. art. I, 8

1.     First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.

2.     Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.

3.     Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

o    Has to substantially affect interstate commerce.

Book Name

Constitutional Law : Stone, Seidman, Sunstein, Tushnet.  ISBN:  978-0-7355-7719-0

Issue

o         Whether a federal statute based on the Commerce Clause, which regulates firearm possession on school

o         grounds, exceed Congress' power to regulate commerce?  Yes, with heavy dissent.

Procedure

Trial

o         Lopez was convicted of violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA), 18 U.S.C.S. 922(q)(1)(A) after carrying a concealed handgun and bullets to school.

Appellant

o         Reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  The Court held the GFSZA was invalid because it was beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, 8, cl. 3. The GFSZA had nothing to do with commerce or any economic activity, and, therefore, could not be sustained as a regulation of activity arising out of or connected with a commercial transaction

Supreme

o         Affirmed.

Facts

Discussion

Key Phrases

Rules

Pl United States (Appellant)

Df Lopez (Appellee)

What Happened

o          Lopez, a 12th grade student, was arrested for possessing a concealed handgun and bullets at his San Antonio high school.

The Gun-Free School Zones Act

o         The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (18 U.S.C. 922 (q)), Congress made it a federal offense for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe is a school zone.

District Trial Court

o         Lopez was convicted

Court of Appeals

o         Reversed, ruling that the law was beyond the reach of the commerce power.

[Chief Justice Rehnquist]

Supreme Court Act Exceeds the authority of Congress

o         To regulate Commerce among the several States.

o         The Act NEITHER regulates a commercial activity NOR contains a requirement that the possession be connect in ANY way to commerce.

Madison - The Constitution creates a Federal Government of Enumerated Powers

o         Federal Governments powers are few and defined.

o         State Governments powers are number and indefinite.

Gregory v. Ashcroft Reduce Risk of Tyranny

o         Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch,

o         A healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front

Jones & Laughlin Steel, Darby, Wickard

o         Commerce Clause was greatly expanded in which Enterprises that had been once local had now become national in scope.

Three Broach Categories that Congress may regulate under the Commerce Clause

U.S. Const. art. I, 8

1.     First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.

2.     Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.

3.     Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

o    Has to substantially affect interstate commerce.

Court - 922(q) Substantially Affected Analysis

Examples Activities that affected interstate commerce

o    The regulation of intrastate coal mining; intrastate extortionate credit transactions, restaurants utilizing substantial interstate supplies (McClung), inns and hotels catering to interstate guests (Heart of Atlanta Motel), and production and consumption of homegrown wheat (Wickard v. Filburn).

o    Where economic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained.

Court 922(q) is a criminal statute that has nothing to do with interstate commerce

o    It is not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity

o    It does not arise out of or is connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, it does not substantially affect interstate commerce.

Governments Arg Violent crimes affect the national economy

1.     First, the costs of violent crime are substantial and insurance costs are spread throughout the population.

2.      Second, violent crime reduces the willingness of individuals to travel to areas within the country that are perceived to be unsafe (Heart of Atlanta Motel).

3.     The presence of guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning environment.

o    A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive citizenry.

o    That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on the Nation's economic well-being.

o    As a result, Congress could rationally have concluded that 922(q) substantially affects interstate commerce.

Court Cost of violent crimes reasoning

o    Congress is saying no matter how tenuously they relate to interstate commerce, Congress could regulate not only all violent crime, but all activities that might lead to violent crime

Court National Productivity Reasoning

o    Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example.

Court Congress could regulate everything under the above theories.

o    It is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States historically have been sovereign.

o    If we were to accept the Government's arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate.

Court - Justice Breyer Focuses On

o    (1) gun-related violence is a serious problem;

o    (2) that problem, in turn, has an adverse effect on classroom learning; and

o    (3) that adverse effect on classroom learning, in turn, represents a substantial threat to trade and commerce.

Court Beyer Lacks Limits

o    Depending on the level of generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial.

Court Dissent on child rearing in relation to education

o    Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate numerous commercial activities that substantially affect interstate commerce and also affect the educational process.

o    That broad authority does not include the authority to regulate each and every aspect of local schools.

Court Legal Uncertainty

o    The Constitution mandates uncertainty by withholding from Congress a plenary police power that would authorize enactment of every type of legislation.

o    Marbury established Judicial review and declares statutes that conflicted with the Constitution invalid.

o    Any possible benefit from eliminating this legal uncertainty would be at the expense of the Constitutions system of enumerated powers.

Court A gun in a local school zone is not economic activity

o    Lopez was a local student at a local school and his possession had not ties to interstate commerce.

o    To uphold this contention, we would have to pile inference upon inference.

AFFIRMED

[Justice Breyer]

Section: I

Connection between regulated activity and interstate commerce

o    The Constitution requires us to judge the connection between a regulated activity and interstate commerce, not directly, but at one remove.

o    Courts must give Congress a degree of leeway in determining the existence of a significant factual connection between the regulated activity and interstate commerce.

o    The Constitution delegates the commerce power directly to Congress

o    The determination requires an empirical judgment of a kind that a legislature is more likely than a court to make with accuracy.

o    The traditional words "rational basis" capture this leeway.

o    Rational Basis Review A test whereby a court will uphold congressional action if it bears a reasonable and rational relationship to the attainment of an appropriate government end.

Section: II

Could violent crime in a school zone affect interstate commerce?

o    Dont view it as a technical connection, but a practical connection.

o    Numerous studies show an empirical connection.

o    Various percentages dealing with carrying guns to school and being children being threatened with guns.

o    Congress could obviously have thought that guns and learning are mutually exclusive.

Education has long been inextricably [so intricate] intertwined with the Nations economy

o    6% of inner-city schools see gun related violence which threatens the trade and commerce that those schools support.

Congress could rationally have concluded that the links are "substantial."

o    The only question, then, is whether the latter threat is (to use the majority's terminology) "substantial."

o    The evidence of (1) the extent of the gun-related violence problem, (2) the extent of the resulting negative effect on classroom learning, and (3) the extent of the consequent negative commercial effects when taken together, indicate a threat to trade and commerce that is "substantial."

Breyer Not obliterate the distinction between what is nation and local

o    Aimed at curbing a threat to the education process

o    The empirical evidence show guns and education are incompatible.

o    Scholars and the society a large have documented a connection between education and the national economy.

o    The statute seems to remove commerce in the abstract, but there is a significant and practical impact upon commerce.

o    This statute would not expand the commerce clause, but it would apply pre-existing law to changing economic circumstances (Heart of Atlanta Motel).

III Majorities Holding Creates Three Separate Problems

Legal Problem 1:  The Supreme Court has upheld cases despite connections to interstate commerce

Perez v. United States

o    Commerce Clause authorized a federal statute that makes it a crime to engage in loan sharking.

o    As held collecting a debt by gun affects commerce among the States, so does the frequent possession of a hand gun at school affect the ability to teach basic skills which intern affects the national economy.

Katzenbach v. McClung

o    Prohibited racial discrimination at local restaurants, because it discourages travel by African Americans and discrimination affected purchases of foods and supplies from other States.

o    The specific instance was a part of a whole that would affect the nations economy.

o    In this case,

o    Business would be less likely to local in communities where violence plagues the classrooms.

o    Families will hesitate to move to neighborhoods where students carry handguns instead of books.

o    Local instances taken as a whole also affect the nations economy.

Legal Problem 2:  Making a critical distinction between commercial and non-commercial transactions.

In Perez

o    The race-based exclusion was not commercial

o    The line becomes almost impossible to draw when you are distinguishing between broad categories.

o    In this case,

o    Teaching reading, writing and math serve both social and commercial purposes, which CANNOT be separate from one other.

Legal Problem 3:  The holding threatens legal uncertainty

o    Congress has enacted 100s of statutes, including criminal statutes, that use the words affecting commerce to define their scope.

o    Would it alter their meaning if they do not regulate commercial activity?

Rules

Three Broach Categories that Congress may regulate under the Commerce Clause

U.S. Const. art. I, 8

4.     First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.

5.     Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.

6.     Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

o    Has to substantially affect interstate commerce.

Class Notes