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Comment by beerbajay | Hacker News Reader

> agrees with our constitution's precepts

The problem is that not even the members of the Supreme Court can agree on what these are or how they should be interpreted.

The everyday understanding of constitutional law is not the same as the legal understanding, which is part of the problem. The commerce clause, as read by any normal individual would not allow the Federal government to have anything to do with (e.g.) pot, but that is how it has been interpreted by the supreme court. No normal person would say that corporations are people, but according to the court they are. etc etc etc.

Reading the constitution, I get a clear picture of a federation of independent states. But this idea died after the Civil War, if not before.

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Commerce clause says that the federal government shall be able to regulate interstate commerce. Pot is something traded in intestate commerce. Its not as ridiculous as you make it seem. The framers might have used narrower language if they could foresee that one day, everything would be a part of interstate commerce. That certainly wasn't true during the time of the framing, when goods were produced locally or even primarily by the individuals using them on family farms. But they used broad language with the intent of giving the federal government the power to regulate large scale commerce as it existed then.

The Supreme Court didn't say that corporations are people. It said that people don't lose their first amendment rights because they assemble themselves into a corporation. Falls naturally out of the first amendments rights to free speech and assembly.

You can't ignore the civil war. The 13, 14, and 15 amendments were a renegotiation of the Constitution at the point of a sword. The idea of a federation of independent states is called into doubt by the supremacy clause and commerce clause, which was in the original, and the 14 amendment, which allows Congress to legislate directly against the states to enforce the amendment. Moreover, looking at original intent, the federalist faction of framers wanted a strong central government. They didn't give states autonomy because they wanted to, they did it because they had to, and they set the stage for states becoming secondary powers.

> Pot is something traded in intestate commerce

Sorry, I should have specified that I meant "grown for private consumption". Obviously if it crosses state borders it fits with what the commerce clause was designed to regulate.

The Commerce Clause was put in place to stop States from taxing each other, not what it's currently being used for.

Expanding on this, the utterly vile 1942 Wickard v. Filburn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn) held about someone growing wheat for his own consumption, quoting Wikipedia:

The Court decided that Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce. Thus, Filburn's production could be regulated by the federal government.

So growing and consuming just about anything locally falls under this interpretation, because otherwise you'd buy it in a market that crosses state lines.

Well, that decision was also conducted under the aegis of a wartime America with a President that actually did have much more expansive Article I powers due to the nation being in a state of war.

I could be hopelessly optimistic and naïve but I simply don't see a similar argument holding in a decision today since there's no National Food Board (or whatever the agency was) to set rationing levels or resource priorities for wartime industrial production.

Except the case preceded the war except in its winding its way through the courts, it's New Deal law, after the "switch in time that saved nine" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_in_time_that_saved_nine... from later in the Wikipedia article on the case:

"In July 1940, pursuant to the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1938, Filburn's 1941 allotment was established at 11.1 acres (4.5 ha) and a normal yield of 20.1 bushels of wheat per acre. Filburn was given notice of the allotment in July 1940 before the Fall planting of his 1941 crop of wheat, and again in July 1941, before it was harvested. Despite these notices, Filburn planted 23 acres (9.3 ha) and harvested 239 bushels from his 11.9 acres (4.8 ha) of excess area."

If they meant to limit it only to keep the states from taxing each other then that's exactly what would have been in the Constitution. For instance Art. I. Sect. 10 is very clear about how states may impose duties and tariffs on imports/exports, it was very much not left to chance.

Knowing the intent of a given clause is helpful for the courts in determining how to interpret the law or Constitution when the written text of the same is unclear. But when the Constitution or law is perfectly clear then that's what the law is.

In this case the relevant clause is "The Congress shall have the Power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States."

That's it... unlike Art. I. Sect. 10, there are no specific constraints or restrains embedded there, certainly nothing about taxes (since it would be easy enough to simply declare that states could not tax each other, similar to how Art I. Sect. 10 does it).

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