Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) proposed a series of constitutional amendments on Friday that would so fundamentally alter our founding document that it would be akin to throwing out the system of government established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and replacing it with something entirely different.
Indeed, Abbott would place restrictions on the federal government that are so severe, both national child labor laws and anti-lynching laws would be unconstitutional under his proposals.
Abbott’s amendments are a hodgepodge of irrelevancies, curiosities and apparent efforts to return America to the golden years of the Hoover administration.
One of the most significant distinctions drawn by the justices of this era was between the transit and sale of goods, which the Court deemed to be part of its definition of “commerce,” and activities such as “manufacture, agriculture, mining [and] production in all its forms,” which it deemed to be beyond the reach of Congress. This distinction formed the basis for various decisions thwarting federal business regulation, including a particularly notorious case invalidating federal child labor laws.
Abbott’s proposal for an amendment prohibiting “congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state” is an attempt to recreate the doctrines that led the Supreme Court to strike down child labor laws. In a white paper explaining his proposals, he endorses the view — which was discarded by the Supreme Court nearly 80 years ago — that “commerce” means only “the ‘trade’ or ‘exchange’ of goods—as distinguished from manufacturing, agriculture, or other means of producing the goods that would eventually be traded or exchanged.”
Yet his actual proposal is significantly more radical than any previous Supreme Court decision. Past decisions, after all, merely limited the federal government’s power to regulate “commerce.” Congress’s other powers, such as its power to spend money to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” or its power to enforce civil rights protections written into the Constitution after the Civil War, were untouched by Gilded Age decisions narrowing the definition of “commerce.”
A short list of laws that would either be drastically shrunk or invalidated entirely if Abbott got his way includes “the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the sick leave portions of the Family and Medical Leave, the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act, as well as minimum wage and maximum hour laws and labor and environmental laws.”
more.......
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/11/3737857/texas-governor-would-make-federal-anti-lynching-laws-unconstitutional/
Indeed, Abbott would place restrictions on the federal government that are so severe, both national child labor laws and anti-lynching laws would be unconstitutional under his proposals.
Abbott’s amendments are a hodgepodge of irrelevancies, curiosities and apparent efforts to return America to the golden years of the Hoover administration.
One of the most significant distinctions drawn by the justices of this era was between the transit and sale of goods, which the Court deemed to be part of its definition of “commerce,” and activities such as “manufacture, agriculture, mining [and] production in all its forms,” which it deemed to be beyond the reach of Congress. This distinction formed the basis for various decisions thwarting federal business regulation, including a particularly notorious case invalidating federal child labor laws.
Abbott’s proposal for an amendment prohibiting “congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state” is an attempt to recreate the doctrines that led the Supreme Court to strike down child labor laws. In a white paper explaining his proposals, he endorses the view — which was discarded by the Supreme Court nearly 80 years ago — that “commerce” means only “the ‘trade’ or ‘exchange’ of goods—as distinguished from manufacturing, agriculture, or other means of producing the goods that would eventually be traded or exchanged.”
Yet his actual proposal is significantly more radical than any previous Supreme Court decision. Past decisions, after all, merely limited the federal government’s power to regulate “commerce.” Congress’s other powers, such as its power to spend money to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” or its power to enforce civil rights protections written into the Constitution after the Civil War, were untouched by Gilded Age decisions narrowing the definition of “commerce.”
A short list of laws that would either be drastically shrunk or invalidated entirely if Abbott got his way includes “the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the sick leave portions of the Family and Medical Leave, the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act, as well as minimum wage and maximum hour laws and labor and environmental laws.”
more.......
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/11/3737857/texas-governor-would-make-federal-anti-lynching-laws-unconstitutional/
