NCP: Modern era of the Commerce Clause: Post-New Deal

Question 1

NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937)(p.93):

Answer 1

steel manufacture case

i) The Court erased the distinction between manufacturing and commerce.
ii) Rule: Although activities may be intrastate in character when separately considered, if they have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions, Congress cannot be denied the power to exercise that control.

Question 2

United States v. Darby (1941)(p.94)

Answer 2

i) FLSA established a min wage & max hrs for employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce. Court overrules Hammer v. Dagenhart. ii) Rule: “The power of congress to regulate interstate commerce extends to the regulation of activities intrastate which have a substantial effect on the commerce.”
(1) “Congress, following from its own conception of public policy…is free to exclude from the commerce articles whose use in the states for which they are destined may conceive to be injurious to the public health, morals, or welfare even though the state has not sought to regulate their use.”

Question 3

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)(p.99)

Answer 3

i) Facts: farmer engaged in wholly intrastate activity of growing wheat for his own farm
(1) Unlike Darby, this is intrastate in both input and output.
ii) Rule: Aggregation principle: though one farmer’s growing own wheat rather than buying from the market would not substantially affect interstate commerce (i.e. the national wheat market), all the small famers growing their own wheat and seed could affect interstate commerce
(1) Central feature of those saying that healthcare law could be regulated by the commerce clause: in the aggregate, those who don’t have healthcare affect the national economy

Question 4

Perez v. United States (1971)(p.102):

Answer 4

local loan shark

i) Held: Congress can regulate Perez’s loan shark business because of the possibility that he was part of a larger loan shark market, which would thereby affect interstate commerce.
(1) Do not have to show individual loan sharks have an effect on interstate commerce, just that he was a member of that class. (not a transparent business, hard to distinguish intrastate loan sharks from interstate loan sharks).
ii) Perez represents the outer limit as to what SCOTUS says Congress is allowed to do. It is as far as any of the case law goes, prior to some degree of retrenchment.