Last week I debated the Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro on a range of issues arising out of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act. If you want to waste an hour of your life, you can watch it below. (For email readers, here's a link. Please note that in both the embedded version and the version at the link, the questions during the Q&A are inaudible, but the answers are audible and should provide enough context so that you can figure out what the questions were about.)
As you will see, the debate was quite wide-ranging. Here I want to take the opportunity to expand on one point I raised in my initial remarks. The relevant discussion begins at the 15:50 point of the video. I said in the debate that the challenge for the government in the ACA case was to give an example of a mandate the government could not impose under an appropriate limiting principle that would nonetheless sustain the minimum coverage provision. I then referred to a paper I am writing. What follows is an excerpt of the current draft of that paper (minus footnotes) that should help to clarify the limiting principle I have in mind. I will present the fuller version of the paper as the Henry J. Miller Lecture at Georgia State University College of Law in the spring. The Lecture is tentatively titled "Commerce, Death Panels and Broccoli: Or Why the Activity/Inactivity Distinction in the Health Care Case Was Really About the Right to Bodily Integrity."
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The
dissent’s main argument was that if the ACA were upheld, then the power of
Congress under the Commerce Clause would be unlimited, in violation of the
structure of Article I, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment. But this claim is
false, in light of the Court’s own relatively recent precedents. Had the ACA been upheld under the Commerce
Clause, Congress still would not be omnipotent.
For example, Congress would still lack the power to ban the possession
of firearms in school zones (per United
States v. Lopez) or to provide a civil remedy in federal court for
gender-motivated violence (per United
States v. Morrison). Why? Because, in the Court’s argot, firearms
possession and gender-motivated violence are not “economic activities.”
That
limit also suggests a straightforward limit on affirmative mandates: If some
activity is not “economic,” then Congress may neither make that activity the
predicate for regulation—as in Lopez and
Morrison—nor may Congress compel
otherwise-inactive people to engage in it—as per the rule laid down, but not
its application, by the Chief Justice and the four dissenters in the ACA case. To give two obvious examples, even if the ACA
had been upheld under the Commerce Clause, Congress still would be powerless to
mandate gun possession near schoolyards or the commission of gender-motivated
violence.
Now, it
will be immediately objected that these are meaningless limits. After all, Congress would never try to mandate gender-motivated violence and
that a law doing so would violate the equal protection component of the Fifth
Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
That may
be a fair objection with respect to the Morrison-based example but the Lopez-based example is harder to dismiss. A number of local governments around the country
have enacted laws mandating gun ownership or possession in particular locales,
such as the home. Given the strength of the gun-rights lobby, it is at least
possible to imagine Congress enacting a similar law for the nation as a
whole. Doing so might infringe the Second Amendment, but then again it might
not. Professor Joseph Blocher has argued
that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as construed in District of Columbia v. Heller and City of Chicago v. McDonald is best read
to entail a right not to keep and
bear arms, but as Professor Blocher himself acknowledges, the question is
difficult and open. Let us suppose that the Second Amendment would not be
offended by a federal law requiring that competent law-abiding adult citizens
(duly defined in the law) keep working firearms in their homes. Would such a law nonetheless be
unconstitutional as beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause?
Before I
answer that question, I need to set aside a complicating wrinkle. Might a federal law obligating law-abiding adult
citizens to keep firearms in the home be sustained under the power of Congress
“[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia”? As Justice Ginsburg noted in the ACA case, as
early as 1792, Congress enacted legislation mandating citizens “to purchase
firearms and gear in anticipation of service in the Militia.” But my hypothetical federal mandate would
apply to those too old or too feeble to serve in the militia, and so, at least
as applied to them, it might be said to be beyond the scope of the Militia
Clause. Even if not, we can ask whether
the hypothetical gun mandate would also fall within the scope of the Commerce
Clause, on the assumption that Congress, acting pursuant to the Commerce
Clause, may mandate economic activity but not non-economic activity.
Given Lopez, the answer is pretty clearly no.
If gun possession in a school zone is not economic activity, then
neither is gun possession in the home.
What
other activities would Congress be powerless to mandate under the rule that I
am suggesting was implicit in the Court’s prior Commerce Clause cases? The answer should be found in those
cases. In Gonzales v. Raich, the Court invoked a dictionary to define
“economic” activity as “the production, distribution, and consumption of
commodities,” but this definition appears to be under-inclusive because it
omits services. Presumably that
oversight simply reflects the fact that Raich
involved goods—marijuana—rather than services. In a subsequent case involving services, we can
expect the Court to hold that they too count as economic activity, at least
when traded for money or other value.
The more troubling aspect of Raich is its inclusion of “consumption
of commodities” within the definition of economic activities. Suppose I eat a raspberry that I pick from a
bush that grows wild on my property.
Have I really engaged in economic activity that may serve as the
predicate for federal regulation under the Commerce Clause? It is easy to see why the Raich Court wanted to include consumption in its definition: by defining the
relevant activity in Raich as the
consumption of marijuana, the Court was able to link the case closely to Filburn, where the law aimed to limit
the consumption of home-grown wheat by people like Filburn. Nonetheless, the inclusion of consumption of
commodities in the definition of economic activity is difficult to reconcile
with the exclusion of possession of a commodity (a gun) in Lopez. Suppose that instead
of just possessing his gun, Lopez had been eating it—either in the literal
sense or as a euphemism for using it to commit suicide. In what sense would that be an “economic”
activity of any sort?
If consumption of a commodity
may serve as the predicate for federal regulation under the Commerce Clause, that
should be because there is a national market for the commodity and demand to
consume it drives that market, not because the consumption itself is economic
activity. The very Controlled Substances
Act at issue in Raich appeared to
reflect a recognition by Congress of that fact.
The Act does not outlaw
“consumption” of controlled substances but their manufacture, distribution,
dispensation, or possession with intent to distribute or dispense.
Accordingly, in the ACA case,
the Court could have said that while the purchase
of a commodity like broccoli is of course economic activity that Congress
may either forbid or require, its consumption
is not. Such a ruling would have
allowed the Court to uphold the mandate to purchase health insurance under the
Commerce Clause without opening the floodgates for consumption mandates.
So why did the conservative
majority reject this path? Setting aside
legal realist and political explanations, part of the answer may be that they
took the language of Raich too
seriously. Thinking that purchasing and
consumption were constitutionally indistinguishable under the Commerce Clause,
they saw no way to sustain the health insurance purchase mandate without also
implying the validity of consumption mandates.
15 comments:
So under your "limiting" principle, Congress can force Americans to purchase *any* good or service, because the compelled purchase is economic activity (regardless of whether the non-purchase, which is the actual regulated activity, is itself economic in nature). Thus, Congress could force Filburn's neighbors to buy wheat, force Americans today to buy GM cars, etc.?
That's not much of a "limit." While it defeats the simplistic "no limits" argument, it doesn't defeat the real argument: i.e., that the commerce power could not possibly have been understood, and should not now be construed, to grant Congress unfettered discretion to force people to buy products that they don't want. The "limits" debate was always whether health-insurance was somehow constitutionally distinguishable from other products, not whether all forced product purchases were ok simply because Lopez and Morrison were still on the books.
The "simplistic 'no limits' argument" is the argument that the dissent in fact made--and for good reason. Presumably they were worried about expanding the sum total of Congressional powers, rather than simply worried about which powers Congress invoked. Congress can already do the equivalent of force purchases under the taxing power and does so routinely when it uses the money raised by taxes to purchase stuff. The Commerce Clause version is actually LESS of an infringement on people's economic freedom, at least with respect to alienable goods or services, as the people required to purchase them can recoup some of the money in a secondary market. I strongly suspect that the reason the opponents of the law raised the specter of forced consumption of broccoli, rather than mere forced purchases of broccoli, is that they understood that focusing on forced purchases would expose the formalism of their argument.
This leaves opponents arguing that requiring the government to force purchases through the taxing power is a political check because taxes are more unpopular than regulations. That argument has something to it, but if that's the point, one ought to defend the claim directly. And for what it's worth, I think the politics go the other way. De facto forced purchases via the tax code are routine, whereas opposition to the direct mandate is fierce--or at least it is fierce now that the conservatives who invented the mandate have decided it's a good way to oppose a Democratic President and Congress.
"you want to waste an hour of your life" ... well chosen words there.
The Constitution itself limits the "unfettered discretion" of the powers of Congress. Prof. Dorf proposes but one "limit" here, that is requiring purchase is different from consumption, which very well arguably can be regulation of commerce too (to regulate markets, you can increase demand by requiring consumption).
As he notes, this is significant, but the "limit principle" brigade repeatedly were not satisfied with limits. The BOR? Not enough! Not consuming broccoli? Not enough!
The "limit" debate was not "always" about any specific thing. The overarching argument seemed to be that there had to be a real limit, no "unfettered" power. Limits were cited all over the place by PPACA constitutionality supporters.
I think the Constitution requires more than limiting Congress to only requiring purchases. But, it only shows a limit to the CC, especially since many laws regulate more than simple economic transactions, some outlawing mere possession.
I disagree with your assertion that the dissenters advanced the "simplistic 'no-limits' argument," but, more importantly, your theory for why they supposedly did so doesn't make any sense.
Assuming for purposes of argument that you're right that Congress can already do the equivalent of forced purchases through the tax power, then Congress also can already do the equivalent of forced consumption through the tax power. After all, nothing in the tax power (as opposed to the DP Clause) distinguishes between taxes on non-purchases and taxes on non-consumption. Thus, on your own theory that the dissenters "were worried about expanding the sum total of Congressional powers, rather than simply worried about which powers Congress invoked," it would make no sense to emphasize forced consumption.
Instead, the reason that the dissenters thought that authorizing all forced purchases would expand the sum total of Congressional powers is that forced purchases are *not* authorized by the tax power. Congress can't force people to buy products through the tax code. It can only incentivize them to do so--and if the incentive is so high that it becomes a coercive penalty, then it'll be invalidated. Plus, the tax power is inherently less coercive than the commerce power, since the only "sanction" that can be imposed is monetary, rather than incarceration.
At the end of the day, your theory would allow Congress to force people to buy GM cars. I'm virtually certain that the dissenters, the challengers, and all those who oppose the mandate would view that as a dramatically unwarranted expansion of the commerce power, even if the "limit" of Lopez/Morrison remains on the books.
(Incidentally, I totally agree with you about the "political check" point, and I think the broccoli hypo was misguided precisely because it traded on inapposite DP concerns about consumption.)
Hashim: Your P.S. shows where we agree--and why I think I'm right. As you'll see from the title of the paper I have excerpted, I ALSO think that the broccoli hypo always had what force it did from the fact that it was really a substantive due process point. On THAT ground, the tax power is insufficient. Or to put the point differently, the threshold for finding a tax unconstitutionally coercive is much lower for SDP purposes than so far as the taxing power as an internal limit is concerned.
n regulations. That argument has something to it, but if that's the point, one ought to defend the claim directly.Windows 7 professional product Key
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And for what it's worth, I think the politics go the other way. De facto forced purchases via the tax code are routine, whereas opposition to the direct mandate is fierce--or at least it is fierce now that the conservatives who invented the mandate have decided it's a good way to oppose a Democratic President and Congress.
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