Commerce Clause Research Paper

The Commerce Clause
The issue is whether the proposed legislation is permissible under the Commerce Clause and the 10th Amendment. Congress’s authority to enact legislation derives from Article I §8 (3) which grants Congress the power to regulate commerce among States. This authority was expanded by Gibbon v. Ogden (1924) which gave Congress the right to regulate commerce in situations where a least two states are involved. The Court further extended Congress’s power in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) by holding that Congress has the right to regulate any activity that will have a substantial aggregate impact on interstate commerce. In 1964, the Court held that Congress had considerable jurisdiction over barring private business from discriminating

First, it must be determined whether an activity is economic or non-economic. Lopez, US v. Morrison (2000), Gonzalez v. Raich (2005) The Court in Raich held that an activity is considered economic when it has to do with “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities.” Non-economic activities as were demonstrated in Lopez and Morrison. The issues in both Lopez (possession of gun in school) and Morrison (rape of a female on college campus) were regarding laws that addressed criminal activity that the Court considered to be non-economic. Here, it can be argued that the corporate contributions to campaigns are economic because those funds are used to purchase airtime and other campaign related resources. Additionally, the donated funds may be seen as a service because by helping a campaign the corporation expects political support for certain issues in return. Raich also provided an alternative analysis that is based on an existing regulatory scheme. However, unlike Raich, where there was the existence of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the facts in this case do not indicate that one exists. In order to do a proper analysis that should be added to the facts to see if “Congress had a rational basis for believing that failure to regulate” corporate campaign financing would “leave a gaping hole” in an existing regulation. Raich. In that case, Congress wanted to regulate the personal use of marijuana as part of the larger CSA regulatory