United States v. Lopez
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| United States v. Lopez | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued November 8, 1994 Decided April 26, 1995 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| Possession of a gun near a school is not an economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. A law prohibiting guns near schools is a criminal statute that does not relate to commerce or any sort of economic activity. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Rehnquist Joined by: O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas Concurrence by: Kennedy Joined by: O'Connor Concurrence by: Thomas Dissent by: Stevens Dissent by: Souter Dissent by: Breyer Joined by: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3 | ||||||||||||
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.
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[edit] Background
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 government argued that possession of a firearm in a school zone leads to violent crime, which would affect the general economic condition by limiting travel in the area. The government also stipulated that the presence of firearms in a school zone would prevent people from learning effectively 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.
[edit] 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.
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.
- Whether the activity was non-economic as opposed to economic activity; previous cases involved economic activity.
- Jurisdictional element: whether the gun had moved in interstate commerce.
- Whether there had been Congressional findings of an economic link between guns and education.
- 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.[1]
[edit] The Impact of the Decision
The decision creates a precedent that holds any federal law that forces states to comply as unconstitutional, creating a substantial question on the system of federalism.[2] This precedent takes special significance in cases where the federal government is attempting to limit private conduct. [2] 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.[3]
Following the Lopez decision, over 556 cases contesting the Commerce Clause powers of the federal government were filed at the federal court level.[4]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
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- ^ William H. Rhenquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, American Constitutional Interpretation, Third Edition, 2000, Ed. Walter F. Murphy, James E. Fleming, Sotirios A. Barber, and Stephen Macedo, pgs. 639-640
- ^ a b Erwin Chemerinsky, Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California, Florida Law Review, "The Values of Federalism," Sept. 1995, 46 Fla. L. Rev. 499
- ^ Kristin Collins, J.D., Yale Law School, Cardozo Law Review, April 2005, pg. Lexis
- ^ Alistair E. Newbern, J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, California Law Review, volume 88, issue 5, October 2000, pg. 1575
