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United States v. Lopez

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United States v. Lopez, was the first United States Supreme Court case since the Great Depression to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Alfonso Lopez Jr. carried a handgun and cartridges into his high school, Edison High, San Antonio, Texas. He was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, .

Lopez's legal defense held that the federal government had no authority to regulate firearms in school zones, and argued that the federal law under which Lopez was convicted was unconstitutional.

The Federal Government's main point during this case was the possession of a firearm in an educational district and environment would most likely lead to a situation involving a violent crime, which would affect the general economic condition by limiting travel in the area. The government also made it extremely clear that the presence of firearms in a school district could always be seen dangerous, scare people and also disturb people from learning properly due to the constant fear of violent crime, leading to a weaker economy. Thus, the government argued that the possession of a firearm at a school fell under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, it was not unlimited, and did not apply to something as far from commerce as carrying handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale. (A later case, United States v. Morrison (2000), ruled that Congress could not make such laws even when there was evidence of aggregate effect.)

Chief Justice Rehnquist, delivering the opinion of the court, wrote that Congress had the power to regulate only:

  • the channels of commerce,
  • the instrumentalities of commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even if the threat comes from intrastate activities, and
  • action that substantially affects interstate commerce, in relation to a broad regulatory scheme

He dismissed the government's argument, reasoning that if Congress could regulate something so far removed from commerce, then it could regulate anything, and since the Constitution clearly creates Congress as a body with enumerated powers, this could not be so. He concludes:

To uphold the Government's contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.

It is important to note that although the ruling stopped a decades-long trend of inclusiveness under the commerce clause, it did not reverse any past ruling about the meaning of the clause.

The Court specifically looked to four factors in their determination.

  1. Whether the activity was non-economic as opposed to economic activity; previous cases involved economic activity.
  2. Jurisdictional element: whether the gun had moved in interstate commerce.
  3. Whether there had been Congressional findings of an economic link between guns and education.
  4. How attenuated the link was between the regulated activity and interstate commerce.

Later, Rehnquist stated that the Court had the duty to prevent the legislative branch from usurping state powers over policing the conduct of their citizens. He admitted that the Supreme Court had upheld certain governmental steps towards taking power away from the states, and cited Lopez as a decision that finally stepped in to check the government's authority by defining clearly between state and federal powers.

The impact of the decision

Lopez raised serious questions as to how far the Court might be willing to go in implementing judicial safeguards against federal encroachments on state sovereignty. This precedent takes special significance in cases where the federal government is attempting to limit private conduct. Commentators are still postulating on how other established federal interstate laws might be affected, such as the Clean Water Act. The argument can be made that this significant limiting of federal power is necessary to establish a greater threshold for governmental accountability and revitalizes the role of the states in public policymaking.

See also

References

External links



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Last updated on Monday March 10, 2008 at 15:59:27 PDT (GMT -0700)
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