OCTOBER TERM, 1994
Syllabus
UNITED STATES
v. LOPEZ
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH
CIRCUIT
No. 93-1260. Argued November 8, 1994-Decided April 26, 1995
After respondent, then a 12th-grade student, carried a concealed
handgun into his high school, he was charged with violating the
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which forbids "any individual
knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that [he] knows ... is a
school zone," 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(I)(A). The District Court denied
his motion to dismiss the indictment, concluding that § 922(q) is a
constitutional exercise of Congress' power to regulate activities
in and affecting commerce. In reversing, the Court of Appeals held
that, in light of what it characterized as insufficient
congressional findings and legislative history, § 922(q) is invalid
as beyond Congress' power under the Commerce Clause.
Held: The Act exceeds Congress' Commerce Clause
authority. First, although this Court has upheld a wide variety of
congressional Acts regulating intrastate economic activity that
substantially affected interstate commerce, the possession of a gun
in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that
might, through repetition elsewhere, have such a substantial effect
on interstate commerce. Section 922(q) is a criminal statute that
by its terms has nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of
economic enterprise, however broadly those terms are defined. Nor
is it an essential part of a larger regulation of economic
activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless
the intrastate activity were regulated. It cannot, therefore, be
sustained under the Court's cases upholding regulations of
activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial
transaction, which, viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects
interstate commerce. Second, § 922(q) contains no jurisdictional
element that would ensure, through case-by-case inquiry, that the
firearms possession in question has the requisite nexus with
interstate commerce. Respondent was a local student at a local
school; there is no indication that he had recently moved in
interstate commerce, and there is no requirement that his
possession of the firearm have any concrete tie to interstate
commerce. To uphold the Government's contention that § 922(q) is
justified because firearms possession in a local school zone does
indeed substantially affect interstate commerce would require this
Court to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid
fair to convert congressional Commerce Clause
550
Syllabus
authority to a general police power of the sort held only by the
States. Pp. 552-568.
2 F.3d
1342, affirmed.
REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J.,
filed a concurring opinion, in which O'CONNOR, J., joined,
post, p. 568. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion,
post, p. 584. STEVENS, J.,
post, p. 602, and SOUTER,
J.,
post, p. 603, filed dissenting opinions. BREYER, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG,
JJ., joined,
post, p. 615.
Solicitor General Days argued the cause for the United States.
With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Harris,
Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Malcolm L. Stewart, and John F.
De Pue.
John R. Carter argued the cause for respondent. With him on the
brief were Lucien B. Campbell, Henry
J. Bemporad, Carter G.
Phillips, and Adam D. Hirsh.*
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for 16
Members of the United States Senate et al. by
Debra A.
Valentine, Brady C.
Williamson, and
Jeffrey
J. Kassel; for the State of Ohio et al. by
Lee
Fisher, Attorney General of Ohio,
John P. Ware,
Assistant Attorney General,
Richard A. Cordray, State
Solicitor,
Simon B. Karas, G.
Oliver Koppell,
Attorney General of New York, and
Vanessa Ruiz; for the
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence et al. by
Erwin N. Griswold,
Dennis A. Henigan, and
Gail A. Robinson; for Children
NOW et al. by
William F.
Abrams; for the Clarendon
Foundation by
Ronald D. Maines; for the Coalition to Stop
Gun Violence et al. by
Brian J. Benner; and
for the National School Safety Center et al. by
James A.
Rapp.
Briefs of
amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the National Conference of State Legislatures et al. by
Richard
Ruda and
Barry Friedman; and for the Pacific Legal
Foundation by
Ronald A. Zumbrun and
Anthony T.
Caso.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Academics for the Second
Amendment et al. by Patrick
J. Basial, Don B. Kates, Robert
Carter, Henry Mark Holzer, Nicholas
J. Johnson, Joseph E.
Olson, Daniel Polsby, Charles E. Rice, Wallace Rudolph, Justin
Smith, Robert B. Smith, George Strickler, Richard Warner, and
Robert Weisberg; and for the Texas Justice Foundation by Clayton
Trotter.
551
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, Congress made it a
federal offense "for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm
at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to
believe, is a school zone." 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed.,
Supp. V). The Act neither regulates a commercial activity nor
contains a requirement that the possession be connected in any way
to interstate commerce. We hold that the Act exceeds the authority
of Congress "[t]o regulate Commerce ... among the several States
.... " u. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3.
On March 10, 1992, respondent, who was then a 12th-grade
student, arrived at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas,
carrying a concealed .38-caliber handgun and five bullets. Acting
upon an anonymous tip, school authorities confronted respondent,
who admitted that he was carrying the weapon. He was arrested and
charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises.
See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 46.03(a)(1) (Supp. 1994). The next day,
the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged
respondent by complaint with violating the Gun-Free School Zones
Act of 1990. 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. V).l
A federal grand jury indicted respondent on one count of knowing
possession of a firearm at a school zone, in violation of § 922(q).
Respondent moved to dismiss his federal indictment on the ground
that § 922(q) "is unconstitutional as it is beyond the power of
Congress to legislate control over our public schools." The
District Court denied the motion, concluding that § 922(q) "is a
constitutional exercise of Congress' well-defined power to regulate
activities in and affecting
1 The term "school zone" is defined as "in, or on the grounds
of, a public, parochial or private school" or "within a distance of
1,000 feet from the grounds of a public, parochial or private
school." § 921(a)(25).
552
commerce, and the 'business' of elementary, middle and high
schools ... affects interstate commerce." App. to Pet. for Cert.
55a. Respondent waived his right to a jury trial. The District
Court conducted a bench trial, found him guilty of violating §
922(q), and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and two
years' supervised release.
On appeal, respondent challenged his conviction based on his
claim that § 922(q) exceeded Congress' power to legislate under the
Commerce Clause. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed
and reversed respondent's conviction. It held that, in light of
what it characterized as insufficient congressional findings and
legislative history, "section 922(q), in the full reach of its
terms, is invalid as beyond the power of Congress under the
Commerce Clause."
2 F.3d
1342, 1367-1368 (1993). Because of the importance of the issue,
we granted certiorari, 511 U. S. 1029 (1994), and we now
affirm.
We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a
Federal Government of enumerated powers. See Art. I, § 8. As James
Madison wrote: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution
to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to
remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The
Federalist No. 45, pp. 292-293 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). This
constitutionally mandated division of authority "was adopted by the
Framers to ensure protection of our fundamental liberties."
Gregory v.
Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 458 (1991)
(internal quotation marks omitted). "Just as the separation and
independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government
serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in anyone
branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the
Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from
either front."
Ibid.
The Constitution delegates to Congress the power "[t]o regulate
Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and
with the Indian Tribes." Art. I, § 8,
553
cl. 3. The Court, through Chief Justice Marshall, first defined
the nature of Congress' commerce power in
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 189-190 (1824):
"Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it
is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between
nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches, and is
regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that
intercourse."
The commerce power "is the power to regulate; that is, to
prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power,
like all others vested in congress, is complete in itself, may be
exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations,
other than are prescribed in the constitution."
Id., at 196.
The
Gibbons Court, however, acknowledged that limitations on
the commerce power are inherent in the very language of the
Commerce Clause.
"It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that
commerce, which is completely internal, which is carried on between
man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same
State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a
power would be inconvenient, and is certainly unnecessary.
"Comprehensive as the word 'among' is, it may very properly be
restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one
.... The enumeration presupposes something not enumerated; and that
something, if we regard the language, or the subject of the
sentence, must be the exclusively internal commerce of a State."
Id., at 194-195.
For nearly a century thereafter, the Court's Commerce Clause
decisions dealt but rarely with the extent of Congress' power, and
almost entirely with the Commerce Clause as a limit on state
legislation that discriminated against interstate commerce. See,
e. g., Veazie v.
Moor, 14 How. 568,
573-575 (1853) (upholding a state-created steamboat monop-
554
oly because it involved regulation of wholly internal commerce);
Kidd v.
Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 17, 20-22
(1888) (upholding a state prohibition on the manufacture of
intoxicating liquor because the commerce power "does not comprehend
the purely internal domestic commerce of a State which is carried
on between man and man within a State or between different parts of
the same State"); see also L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law
306 (2d ed. 1988). Under this line of precedent, the Court held
that certain categories of activity such as "production,"
"manufacturing," and "mining" were within the province of state
governments, and thus were beyond the power of Congress under the
Commerce Clause. See
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 121 (1942)
(describing development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence ).
In 1887, Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat.
379, and in 1890, Congress enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act, 26
Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1
et seq. These laws
ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce
power. When cases involving these laws first reached this Court, we
imported from our negative Commerce Clause cases the approach that
Congress could not regulate activities such as "production,"
"manufacturing," and "mining." See,
e. g., United States v.
E. C.
Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, 12 (1895)
("Commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not part of it");
Carter v.
Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 304 (1936)
("Mining brings the subject matter of commerce into existence.
Commerce disposes of it"). Simultaneously, however, the Court held
that, where the interstate and intrastate aspects of commerce were
so mingled together that full regulation of interstate commerce
required incidental regulation of intrastate commerce, the Commerce
Clause authorized such regulation. See,
e. g., Shreveport Rate
Cases, 234 U. S.
342 (1914).
In
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v.
United
States, 295 U. S.
495, 550 (1935), the Court struck down regulations that
555
fixed the hours and wages of individuals employed by an
intrastate business because the activity being regulated related to
interstate commerce only indirectly. In doing so, the Court
characterized the distinction between direct and indirect effects
of intrastate transactions upon interstate commerce as "a
fundamental one, essential to the maintenance of our constitutional
system."
Id., at 548. Activities that affected interstate
commerce directly were within Congress' power; activities that
affected interstate commerce indirectly were beyond Congress'
reach.
Id., at 546. The justification for this formal
distinction was rooted in the fear that otherwise "there would be
virtually no limit to the federal power and for all practical
purposes we should have a completely centralized government."
Id., at 548.
Two years later, in the watershed case of
NLRB v.
Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937), the
Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act against a Commerce
Clause challenge, and in the process, departed from the distinction
between "direct" and "indirect" effects on interstate commerce.
Id., at 36-38 ("The question [of the scope of Congress'
power] is necessarily one of degree"). The Court held that
intrastate activities that "have such a close and substantial
relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or
appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions"
are within Congress' power to regulate.
Id., at 37.
In
United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100 (1941), the
Court
upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act, stating:
"The power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined
to the regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those
activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the
exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation of
them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the
exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate
commerce." Id., at 118.
556
See also
United States v.
Wrightwood Dairy Co.,
315 U. S. 110,
119 (1942) (the commerce power "extends to those intrastate
activities which in a substantial way interfere with or obstruct
the exercise of the granted power").
In
Wickard v.
Filburn, the Court upheld the
application of amendments to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of
1938 to the production and consumption of homegrown wheat. 317 U.
S., at 128-129. The
Wickard Court explicitly rejected
earlier distinctions between direct and indirect effects on
interstate commerce, stating:
"[E]ven if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be
regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached
by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on
interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether such effect
is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or
'indirect.''' Id., at 125.
The
Wickard Court emphasized that although Filburn's own
contribution to the demand for wheat may have been trivial by
itself, that was not "enough to remove him from the scope of
federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together
with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial."
Id., at 127-128.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel, Darby, and
Wickard ushered in an era of Commerce Clause jurisprudence
that greatly expanded the previously defined authority of Congress
under that Clause. In part, this was a recognition of the great
changes that had occurred in the way business was carried on in
this country. Enterprises that had once been local or at most
regional in nature had become national in scope. But the doctrinal
change also reflected a view that earlier Commerce Clause cases
artificially had constrained the authority of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce.
But even these modern-era precedents which have expanded
congressional power under the Commerce Clause
557
confirm that this power is subject to outer limits. In
Jones &
Laughlin Steel, the Court warned that the
scope of the interstate commerce power "must be considered in the
light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so
as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and
remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would
effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and
what is local and create a completely centralized government." 301
U. S., at 37; see also
Darby, supra, at 119-120 (Congress
may regulate intrastate activity that has a "substantial effect" on
interstate commerce);
Wickard, supra, at 125 (Congress may
regulate activity that "exerts a substantial economic effect on
interstate commerce"). Since that time, the Court has heeded that
warning and undertaken to decide whether a rational basis existed
for concluding that a regulated activity sufficiently affected
interstate commerce. See,
e. g., Hodel v.
Virginia
Surface Mining &
Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276-280
(1981);
Perez v.
United States, 402 U. S. 146, 155-156
(1971); Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 299-301
(1964);
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v.
United
States, 379 U. S.
241, 252-253 (1964).2
Similarly, in
Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968), the
Court reaffirmed that "the power to regulate commerce, though broad
indeed, has limits" that "[t]he Court has ample power" to enforce.
Id., at 196, overruled on other grounds,
National League
of Cities v.
Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976),
overruled by
Garcia v.
San Antonio Metropolitan
Transit
2 See also
Hodel, 452 U. S., at 311 ("[S]imply because
Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially
affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so")
(REHNQUIST, J., concurring in judgment);
Heart of Atlanta
Motel, 379 U. S., at 273 ("[W]hether particular operations
affect interstate commerce sufficiently to come under the
constitutional power of Congress to regulate them is ultimately a
judicial rather than a legislative question, and can be settled
finally only by this Court") (Black, J., concurring).
558
Authority, 469 U. S. 528 (1985). In
response to the dissent's warnings that the Court was powerless to
enforce the limitations on Congress' commerce powers because "[a]ll
activities affecting commerce, even in the minutest degree,
[Wickard], may be regulated and controlled by Congress," 392
U. S., at 204 (Douglas, J., dissenting), the
Wirtz Court
replied that the dissent had misread precedent as "[n]either here
nor in
Wickard has the Court declared that Congress may use
a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad
general regulation of state or private activities,"
id., at
197, n. 27. Rather, "[t]he Court has said only that where
a
general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to
commerce, the
de minimis character of individual
instances arising under that statute is of no consequence."
Ibid. (first emphasis added).
Consistent with this structure, we have identified three broad
categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its
commerce power.
Perez, supra, at 150; see also
Hodel,
supra, at 276-277. First, Congress may regulate the use of the
channels of interstate commerce. See,
e. g.,
Darby, 312 U. S., at 114;
Heart of Atlanta Motel,
supra, at 256 (" '[T]he authority of Congress to keep the
channels of interstate commerce free from immoral and injurious
uses has been frequently sustained, and is no longer open to
question'" (quoting
Caminetti v.
United States,
242 U. S. 470,
491 (1917))). Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect
the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things
in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from
intrastate activities. See,
e. g., Shreveport Rate
Cases, 234 U. S.
342 (1914);
Southern R. Co. v.
United States,
222 U. S. 20
(1911) (upholding amendments to Safety Appliance Act as applied to
vehicles used in intrastate commerce);
Perez, supra, at 150
("[F]or example, the destruction of an aircraft (18 U. S. C. § 32),
or ... thefts from interstate shipments (18 U. S. C. § 659)").
Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to
regulate those ac-
559
tivities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce,
Jones &
Laughlin Steel, 301 U. S., at 37, i.
e., those activities that substantially affect interstate
commerce,
Wirtz, supra, at 196, n. 27.
Within this final category, admittedly, our case law has not
been clear whether an activity must "affect" or "substantially
affect" interstate commerce in order to be within Congress' power
to regulate it under the Commerce Clause. Compare
Preseault
v.
ICC, 494 U.
S. 1, 17 (1990), with
Wirtz, supra, at 196, n. 27 (the
Court has never declared that "Congress may use a relatively
trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general
regulation of state or private activities"). We conclude,
consistent with the great weight of our case law, that the proper
test requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity
"substantially affects" interstate commerce.
We now turn to consider the power of Congress, in the light of
this framework, to enact § 922(q). The first two categories of
authority may be quickly disposed of: § 922(q) is not a regulation
of the use of the channels of interstate commerce, nor is it an
attempt to prohibit the interstate transportation of a commodity
through the channels of commerce; nor can § 922(q) be justified as
a regulation by which Congress has sought to protect an
instrumentality of interstate commerce or a thing in interstate
commerce. Thus, if § 922(q) is to be sustained, it must be under
the third category as a regulation of an activity that
substantially affects interstate commerce.
First, we have upheld a wide variety of congressional Acts
regulating intrastate economic activity where we have concluded
that the activity substantially affected interstate commerce.
Examples include the regulation of intrastate coal mining;
Hodel, supra, intrastate extortionate credit transactions,
Perez, supra, restaurants utilizing substantial interstate
supplies,
McClung, supra, inns and hotels catering to
interstate guests,
Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, and
pro-
560
duction and consumption of homegrown wheat,
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317
U. S. 111 (1942). These examples are by no means exhaustive,
but the pattern is clear. Where economic activity substantially
affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity
will be sustained.
Even
Wickard, which is perhaps the most far reaching
example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate activity,
involved economic activity in a way that the possession of a gun in
a school zone does not. Roscoe Filburn operated a small farm in
Ohio, on which, in the year involved, he raised 23 acres of wheat.
It was his practice to sow winter wheat in the fall, and after
harvesting it in July to sell a portion of the crop, to feed part
of it to poultry and livestock on the farm, to use some in making
flour for home consumption, and to keep the remainder for seeding
future crops. The Secretary of Agriculture assessed a penalty
against him under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 because
he harvested about 12 acres more wheat than his allotment under the
Act permitted. The Act was designed to regulate the volume of wheat
moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid
surpluses and shortages, and concomitant fluctuation in wheat
prices, which had previously obtained. The Court said, in an
opinion sustaining the application of the Act to Filburn's
activity:
"One of the primary purposes of the Act in question was to
increase the market price of wheat and to that end to limit the
volume thereof that could affect the market. It can hardly be
denied that a factor of such volume and variability as
home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and
market conditions. This may arise because being in marketable
condition such wheat overhangs the market and, if induced by rising
prices, tends to flow into the market and check price increases.
But if we assume that it is never marketed, it supplies a need of
the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases
in the open market.
561
Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce."
317 U. S., at 128.
Section 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms has
nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of economic enterprise,
however broadly one might define those terms.3 Section 922(q) is
not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity,
in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the
intrastate activity were regulated. It cannot, therefore, be
sustained under our cases upholding regulations of activities that
arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which
viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate
commerce.
Second, § 922(q) contains no jurisdictional element which would
ensure, through case-by-case inquiry, that the firearm possession
in question affects interstate commerce. For example, in
United
States v.
Bass, 404 U. S. 336 (1971), the
Court interpreted former 18 U. S. C. § 1202(a), which made it
3 Under our federal system, the" 'States possess primary
authority for defining and enforcing the criminal law.'''
Brecht v.
Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619,635 (1993)
(quoting
Engle v.
Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 128
(1982)); see also
Screws v.
United States, 325 U. S. 91, 109 (1945)
(plurality opinion) ("Our national government is one of delegated
powers alone. Under our federal system the administration of
criminal justice rests with the States except as Congress, acting
within the scope of those delegated powers, has created offenses
against the United States"). When Congress criminalizes conduct
already denounced as criminal by the States, it effects a "'change
in the sensitive relation between federal and state criminal
jurisdiction.'''
United States v.
Enmons, 410 U. S. 396, 411-412
(1973) (quoting
United States v.
Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349
(1971)). The Government acknowledges that § 922(q) "displace[s]
state policy choices in ... that its prohibitions apply even in
States that have chosen not to outlaw the conduct in question."
Brief for United States 29, n. 18; see also Statement of President
George Bush on Signing the Crime Control Act of 1990, 26 Weekly
Compo of Pres. Doc. 1944, 1945 (Nov. 29, 1990) ("Most egregiously,
section [922(q)] inappropriately overrides legitimate State
firearms laws with a new and unnecessary Federal law. The policies
reflected in these provisions could legitimately be adopted by the
States, but they should not be imposed upon the States by the
Congress").
562
a crime for a felon to "receiv[e], posses[s], or transpor[t] in
commerce or affecting commerce ... any firearm." 404 U. S., at 337.
The Court interpreted the possession component of § 1202(a) to
require an additional nexus to interstate commerce both because the
statute was ambiguous and because "unless Congress conveys its
purpose clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly
changed the federal-state balance."
Id., at 349. The
Bass Court set aside the conviction because, although the
Government had demonstrated that Bass had possessed a firearm, it
had failed "to show the requisite nexus with interstate commerce."
Id., at 347. The Court thus interpreted the statute to
reserve the constitutional question whether Congress could
regulate, without more, the "mere possession" of firearms. See
id., at 339, n. 4; see also
United States v.
Five
Gambling Devices, 346 U. S. 441, 448 (1953) (plurality opinion)
("The principle is old and deeply imbedded in our jurisprudence
that this Court will construe a statute in a manner that requires
decision of serious constitutional questions only if the statutory
language leaves no reasonable alternative"). Unlike the statute in
Bass, § 922(q) has no express jurisdictional element which
might limit its reach to a discrete set of firearm possessions that
additionally have an explicit connection with or effect on
interstate commerce.
Although as part of our independent evaluation of
constitutionality under the Commerce Clause we of course consider
legislative findings, and indeed even congressional committee
findings, regarding effect on interstate commerce, see,
e. g.,
Preseault v.
ICC, 494 U. S., at 17, the Government
concedes that "[n]either the statute nor its legislative history
contain[s] express congressional findings regarding the effects
upon interstate commerce of gun possession in a school zone." Brief
for United States 5-6. We agree with the Government that Congress
normally is not required to make formal findings as to the
substantial burdens that an activity has on interstate commerce.
See
McClung, 379 U. S., at 304;
563
see also
Perez, 402 U. S., at 156 ("Congress need [not]
make particularized findings in order to legislate"). But to the
extent that congressional findings would enable us to evaluate the
legislative judgment that the activity in question substantially
affected interstate commerce, even though no such substantial
effect was visible to the naked eye, they are lacking here.4
The Government argues that Congress has accumulated
institutional expertise regarding the regulation of firearms
through previous enactments. Cf.
Fullilove v.
Klutznick, 448
U. S. 448, 503 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring). We agree,
however, with the Fifth Circuit that importation of previous
findings to justify § 922(q) is especially inappropriate here
because the "prior federal enactments or Congressional findings [do
not] speak to the subject matter of section 922(q) or its
relationship to interstate commerce. Indeed, section 922(q) plows
thoroughly new ground and represents a sharp break with the
long-standing pattern of federal firearms legislation." 2 F. 3d, at
1366.
The Government's essential contention,
in fine, is that
we may determine here that § 922(q) is valid because possession of
a firearm in a local school zone does indeed substantially affect
interstate commerce. Brief for United States 17. The Government
argues that possession of a firearm in a school zone may result in
violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to affect the
functioning of the national economy in two ways. First, the costs
of violent
4 We note that on September 13, 1994, President Clinton signed
into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,
Pub. L. 103-322, 108 Stat. 1796. Section 320904 of that Act,
id., at 2125, amends § 922(q) to include congressional
findings regarding the effects of firearm possession in and around
schools upon interstate and foreign commerce. The Government does
not rely upon these subsequent findings as a substitute for the
absence of findings in the first instance. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25
("[W]e're not relying on them in the strict sense of the word, but
we think that at a very minimum they indicate that reasons can be
identified for why Congress wanted to regulate this particular
activity").
564
crime are substantial, and, through the mechanism of insurance,
those costs are spread throughout the population. See
United
States v.
Evans, 928 F.2d
858, 862 (CA9 1991). Second, violent crime reduces the
willingness of individuals to travel to areas within the country
that are perceived to be unsafe. Cf.
Heart of Atlanta Motel,
379 U. S., at 253. The Government also argues that the presence of
guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational
process by threatening the learning environment. A handicapped
educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive
citizenry. That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on the
Nation's economic well-being. As a result, the Government argues
that Congress could rationally have concluded that § 922(q)
substantially affects interstate commerce.
We pause to consider the implications of the Government's
arguments. The Government admits, under its "costs of crime"
reasoning, that Congress could regulate not only all violent crime,
but all activities that might lead to violent crime, regardless of
how tenuously they relate to interstate commerce. See Tr. of Oral
Arg. 8-9. Similarly, under the Government's "national productivity"
reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was
related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family
law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example.
Under the theories that the Government presents in support of §
922(q), it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal
power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education
where States historically have been sovereign. Thus, if we were to
accept the Government's arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any
activity by an individual that Congress is without power to
regulate.
Although JUSTICE BREYER argues that acceptance of the
Government's rationales would not authorize a general federal
police power, he is unable to identify any activity that the States
may regulate but Congress may not. JUSTICE BREYER posits that there
might be some limitations on Con-
565
gress' commerce power, such as family law or certain aspects of
education.
Post, at 624. These suggested limitations, when
viewed in light of the dissent's expansive analysis, are devoid of
substance.
JUSTICE BREYER focuses, for the most part, on the threat that
firearm possession in and near schools poses to the educational
process and the potential economic consequences flowing from that
threat.
Post, at 619-624. Specifically, the dissent reasons
that (1) gun-related violence is a serious problem; (2) that
problem, in turn, has an adverse effect on classroom learning; and
(3) that adverse effect on classroom learning, in turn, represents
a substantial threat to trade and commerce.
Post, at 623.
This analysis would be equally applicable, if not more so, to
subjects such as family law and direct regulation of education.
For instance, if Congress can, pursuant to its Commerce Clause
power, regulate activities that adversely affect the learning
environment, then,
a fortiori, it also can regulate the
educational process directly. Congress could determine that a
school's curriculum has a "significant" effect on the extent of
classroom learning. As a result, Congress could mandate a federal
curriculum for local elementary and secondary schools because what
is taught in local schools has a significant "effect on classroom
learning," cf.
ibid., and that, in turn, has a substantial
effect on interstate commerce.
JUSTICE BREYER rejects our reading of precedent and argues that
"Congress ... could rationally conclude that schools fall on the
commercial side of the line."
Post, at 629. Again, JUSTICE
BREYER'S rationale lacks any real limits because, depending on the
level of generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial.
Under the dissent's rationale, Congress could just as easily look
at child rearing as "fall[ing] on the commercial side of the line"
because it provides a "valuable service-namely, to equip [children]
with the skills they need to survive in life and, more
specifically, in the workplace."
Ibid. We do not doubt that
Congress
566
has authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate numerous
commercial activities that substantially affect interstate commerce
and also affect the educational process. That authority, though
broad, does not include the authority to regulate each and every
aspect of local schools.
Admittedly, a determination whether an intrastate activity is
commercial or noncommercial may in some cases result in legal
uncertainty. But, so long as Congress' authority is limited to
those powers enumerated in the Constitution, and so long as those
enumerated powers are interpreted as having judicially enforceable
outer limits, congressionallegislation under the Commerce Clause
always will engender "legal uncertainty."
Post, at 630. As
Chief Justice Marshall stated in
McCulloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819):
"Th[e] [federal] government is acknowledged by all to be one of
enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the
powers granted to it ... is now universally admitted. But the
question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted, is
perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise, as long
as our system shall exist." Id., at 405.
See also
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 195 ("The
enumeration presupposes something not enumerated"). The
Constitution mandates this uncertainty by withholding from Congress
a plenary police power that would authorize enactment of every type
of legislation. See Art. I, § 8. Congress has operated within this
framework of legal uncertainty ever since this Court determined
that it was the Judiciary's duty "to say what the law is."
Marbury v.
Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803)
(Marshall, C. J.). Any possible benefit from eliminating this
"legal uncertainty" would be at the expense of the Constitution's
system of enumerated powers.
In
Jones &
Laughlin Steel, 301 U. S., at 37,
we held that the question of congressional power under the Commerce
Clause "is necessarily one of degree." To the same effect
567
is the concurring opinion of Justice Cardozo in
Schechter
Poultry:
"There is a view of causation that would obliterate the
distinction between what is national and what is local in the
activities of commerce. Motion at the outer rim is communicated
perceptibly, though minutely, to recording instruments at the
center. A society such as ours 'is an elastic medium which
transmits all tremors throughout its territory; the only question
is of their size.'" 295 U. S., at 554 (quoting United States
v. A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp., 76 F.2d 617, 624 (CA2
1935) (L. Hand, J., concurring)).
These are not precise formulations, and in the nature of things
they cannot be. But we think they point the way to a correct
decision of this case. The possession of a gun in a local school
zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through
repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate
commerce. Respondent was a local student at a local school; there
is no indication that he had recently moved in interstate commerce,
and there is no requirement that his possession of the firearm have
any concrete tie to interstate commerce.
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. See
supra, at 556-558. 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, cf.
Gibbons v.
Ogden,
supra, at 195, and that there never will be a distinction
between what is
568
truly national and what is truly local, cf.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel, supra, at 30. This we are unwilling to
do.
For the foregoing reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals
is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR joins,
concurring.
The history of the judicial struggle to interpret the Commerce
Clause during the transition from the economic system the Founders
knew to the single, national market still emergent in our own era
counsels great restraint before the Court determines that the
Clause is insufficient to support an exercise of the national
power. That history gives me some pause about today's decision, but
I join the Court's opinion with these observations on what I
conceive to be its necessary though limited holding.
Chief Justice Marshall announced that the national authority
reaches "that commerce which concerns more States than one" and
that the commerce power "is complete in itself, may be exercised to
its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are
prescribed in the constitution."
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9
Wheat. 1, 194, 196 (1824). His statements can be understood now as
an early and authoritative recognition that the Commerce Clause
grants Congress extensive power and ample discretion to determine
its appropriate exercise. The progression of our Commerce Clause
cases from
Gibbons to the present was not marked, however,
by a coherent or consistent course of interpretation; for neither
the course of technological advance nor the foundational principles
for the jurisprudence itself were self-evident to the courts that
sought to resolve contemporary disputes by enduring principles.
Furthermore, for almost a century after the adoption of the
Constitution, the Court's Commerce Clause decisions did not concern
the authority of Congress to legislate. Rather,
569
the Court faced the related but quite distinct question of the
authority of the States to regulate matters that would be within
the commerce power had Congress chosen to act. The simple fact was
that in the early years of the Republic, Congress seldom perceived
the necessity to exercise its power in circumstances where its
authority would be called into question. The Court's initial task,
therefore, was to elaborate the theories that would permit the
States to act where Congress had not done so. Not the least part of
the problem was the unresolved question whether the congressional
power was exclusive, a question reserved by Chief Justice Marshall
in
Gibbons v.
Ogden, supra, at 209-210.
At the midpoint of the 19th century, the Court embraced the
principle that the States and the National Government both have
authority to regulate certain matters absent the congressional
determination to displace local law or the necessity for the Court
to invalidate local law because of the dormant national power.
Cooley v.
Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex
rel. Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299, 318-321
(1852). But the utility of that solution was not at once apparent,
see generally F. Frankfurter, The Commerce Clause under Marshall,
Taney and Waite (1937) (hereinafter Frankfurter), and difficulties
of application persisted, see
Leisy v.
Hardin,
135 U. S. 100,
122-125 (1890).
One approach the Court used to inquire into the lawfulness of
state authority was to draw content-based or subjectmatter
distinctions, thus defining by semantic or formalistic categories
those activities that were commerce and those that were not. For
instance, in deciding that a State could prohibit the in-state
manufacture of liquor intended for outof-state shipment, it
distinguished between manufacture and commerce. "No distinction is
more popular to the common mind, or more clearly expressed in
economic and political literature, than that between manufactur[e]
and commerce. Manufacture is transformation-the fashioning of raw
mate-
570
rials into a change of form for use. The functions of commerce
are different."
Kidd v.
Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20 (1888).
Though that approach likely would not have survived even if
confined to the question of a State's authority to enact
legislation, it was not at all propitious when applied to the quite
different question of what subjects were within the reach of the
national power when Congress chose to exercise it.
This became evident when the Court began to confront federal
economic regulation enacted in response to the rapid industrial
development in the late 19th century. Thus, it relied upon the
manufacture-commerce dichotomy in
United States v.
E.
C.
Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1 (1895), where a
manufacturers' combination controlling some 98% of the Nation's
domestic sugar refining capacity was held to be outside the reach
of the Sherman Act. Conspiracies to control manufacture,
agriculture, mining, production, wages, or prices, the Court
explained, had too "indirect" an effect on interstate commerce.
Id., at 16. And in
Adair v.
United States, 208
U. S. 161 (1908), the Court rejected the view that the commerce
power might extend to activities that, although local in the sense
of having originated within a single State, nevertheless had a
practical effect on interstate commercial activity. The Court
concluded that there was not a "legal or logical connection ...
between an employe's membership in a labor organization and the
carrying on of interstate commerce,"
id., at 178, and struck
down a federal statute forbidding the discharge of an employee
because of his membership in a labor organization. See also
The
Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 497 (1908)
(invalidating statute creating negligence action against common
carriers for personal injuries of employees sustained in the course
of employment, because the statute "regulates the persons because
they engage in interstate commerce and does not alone regulate the
business of interstate commerce").
571
Even before the Court committed itself to sustaining federal
legislation on broad principles of economic practicality, it found
it necessary to depart from these decisions. The Court disavowed
E. C.
Knight's reliance on the manufacturing-commerce
distinction in
Standard Oil Co. of N.
J. v.
United
States, 221 U. S.
1, 68-69 (1911), declaring that approach "unsound." The Court
likewise rejected the rationale of
Adair when it decided, in
Texas &
New Orleans R. Co. v.
Railway
Clerks, 281 U. S.
548, 570-571 (1930), that Congress had the power to regulate
matters pertaining to the organization of railroad workers.
In another line of cases, the Court addressed Congress' efforts
to impede local activities it considered undesirable by prohibiting
the interstate movement of some essential element. In the
Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321 (1903), the
Court rejected the argument that Congress lacked power to prohibit
the interstate movement of lottery tickets because it had power
only to regulate, not to prohibit. See also
Hipolite Egg Co.
v.
United States, 220 U. S. 45 (1911);
Hoke v.
United States, 227 U. S. 308 (1913). In
Hammer v.
Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1918),
however, the Court insisted that the power to regulate commerce "is
directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from
moving,"
id., at 269-270, and struck down a prohibition on
the interstate transportation of goods manufactured in violation of
child labor laws.
Even while it was experiencing difficulties in finding
satisfactory principles in these cases, the Court was pursuing a
more sustainable and practical approach in other lines of
decisions, particularly those involving the regulation of railroad
rates. In the
Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352 (1913), the
Court upheld a state rate order, but observed that Congress might
be empowered to regulate in this area if "by reason of the
interblending of the interstate and intrastate operations of
interstate carriers" the regulation of interstate rates could not
be maintained without restrictions on "intra-
572
state rates which substantially affect the former."
Id.,
at 432-433. And in the
Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914), the
Court upheld an Interstate Commerce Commission order fixing
railroad rates with the explanation that congressional authority,
"extending to these interstate carriers as instruments of
interstate commerce, necessarily embraces the right to control
their operations in all matters having such a close and substantial
relation to interstate traffic that the control is essential or
appropriate to the security of that traffic, to the efficiency of
the interstate service, and to the maintenance of conditions under
which interstate commerce may be conducted upon fair terms and
without molestation or hindrance."
Id., at 351.
Even the most confined interpretation of "commerce" would
embrace transportation between the States, so the rate cases posed
much less difficulty for the Court than cases involving manufacture
or production. Nevertheless, the Court's recognition of the
importance of a practical conception of the commerce power was not
altogether confined to the rate cases. In
Swift &
Co. v.
United States, 196 U. S. 375 (1905), the
Court upheld the application of federal antitrust law to a
combination of meat dealers that occurred in one State but that
restrained trade in cattle "sent for sale from a place in one
State, with the expectation that they will end their transit ... in
another."
Id., at 398. The Court explained that "commerce
among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a
practical one, drawn from the course of business."
Ibid.
Chief Justice Taft followed the same approach in upholding federal
regulation of stockyards in
Stafford v.
Wallace,
258 U. S. 495
(1922). Speaking for the Court, he rejected a "nice and technical
inquiry,"
id., at 519, when the local transactions at issue
could not "be separated from the movement to which they
contribute,"
id., at 516.
Reluctance of the Court to adopt that approach in all of its
cases caused inconsistencies in doctrine to persist, however. In
addressing New Deal legislation the Court resuscitated
573
the abandoned abstract distinction between direct and indirect
effects on interstate commerce. See
Carter v.
Carter Coal
Co., 298 U. S.
238, 309 (1936) (Act regulating price of coal and wages and
hours for miners held to have only "secondary and indirect" effect
on interstate commerce);
Railroad Retirement Bd. v.
Alton
R. Co., 295 U. S.
330, 368 (1935) (compulsory retirement and pension plan for
railroad carrier employees too "remote from any regulation of
commerce as such");
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v.
United States, 295 U. S. 495, 548 (1935)
(wage and hour law provision of National Industrial Recovery Act
had "no direct relation to interstate commerce").
The case that seems to mark the Court's definitive commitment to
the practical conception of the commerce power is
NLRB v.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937), where
the Court sustained labor laws that applied to manufacturing
facilities, making no real attempt to distinguish
Carter,
supra, and
Schechter, supra. 301 U. S., at 40-41. The
deference given to Congress has since been confirmed.
United
States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 116-117
(1941), overruled
Hammer v.
Dagenhart, supra. And in
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), the
Court disapproved
E. C.
Knight and the entire line of
direct-indirect and manufacture-production cases, explaining that
"broader interpretations of the Commerce Clause [were] destined to
supersede the earlier ones," 317 U. S., at 122, and "[w]hatever
terminology is used, the criterion is necessarily one of degree and
must be so defined. This does not satisfy those who seek
mathematical or rigid formulas. But such formulas are not provided
by the great concepts of the Constitution,"
id., at 123, n.
24. Later examples of the exercise of federal power where
commercial transactions were the subject of regulation include
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v.
United States,
379 U. S. 241
(1964),
Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964), and
Perez v.
United States, 402 U. S. 146 (1971).
These and like authorities are within the fair ambit
574
of the Court's practical conception of commercial regulation and
are not called in question by our decision today.
The history of our Commerce Clause decisions contains at least
two lessons of relevance to this case. The first, as stated at the
outset, is the imprecision of content-based boundaries used without
more to define the limits of the Commerce Clause. The second,
related to the first but of even greater consequence, is that the
Court as an institution and the legal system as a whole have an
immense stake in the stability of our Commerce Clause jurisprudence
as it has evolved to this point.
Stare decisis operates with
great force in counseling us not to call in question the essential
principles now in place respecting the congressional power to
regulate transactions of a commercial nature. That fundamental
restraint on our power forecloses us from reverting to an
understanding of commerce that would serve only an 18th-century
economy, dependent then upon production and trading practices that
had changed but little over the preceding centuries; it also
mandates against returning to the time when congressional authority
to regulate undoubted commercial activities was limited by a
judicial determination that those matters had an insufficient
connection to an interstate system. Congress can regulate in the
commercial sphere on the assumption that we have a single market
and a unified purpose to build a stable national economy.
In referring to the whole subject of the federal and state
balance, we said this just three Terms ago:
"This framework has been sufficiently flexible over the past two
centuries to allow for enormous changes in the nature of
government. The Federal Government undertakes activities today that
would have been unimaginable to the Framers in two senses: first,
because the Framers would not have conceived that any government
would conduct such activities; and second, because the Framers
would not have believed that the Federal Government, rather than
the States, would assume such
575
responsibilities. Yet the powers conferred upon the Federal
Government by the Constitution were phrased in language broad
enough to allow for the expansion of the Federal Government's
role." New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 157 (1992)
(emphasis deleted).
It does not follow, however, that in every instance the Court
lacks the authority and responsibility to review congressional
attempts to alter the federal balance. This case requires us to
consider our place in the design of the Government and to
appreciate the significance of federalism in the whole structure of
the Constitution.
Of the various structural elements in the Constitution,
separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, and
federalism, only concerning the last does there seem to be much
uncertainty respecting the existence, and the content, of standards
that allow the Judiciary to playa significant role in maintaining
the design contemplated by the Framers. Although the resolution of
specific cases has proved difficult, we have derived from the
Constitution workable standards to assist in preserving separation
of powers and checks and balances. See,
e. g., Prize Cases,
2 Black 635 (1863);
Youngstown Sheet &
Tube Co.
v.
Sawyer, 343
U. S. 579 (1952);
United States v.
Nixon,
418 U. S. 683
(1974); Buckley v.
Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976);
INS v.
Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983);
Bowsher v.
Synar, 478 U. S. 714 (1986);
Plaut v.
Spendthrift Farm, Inc., ante, p. 211. These
standards are by now well accepted. Judicial review is also
established beyond question,
Marbury v.
Madison, 1
Cranch 137 (1803), and though we may differ when applying its
principles, see,
e. g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern
Pa. v.
Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), its
legitimacy is undoubted. Our role in preserving the federal balance
seems more tenuous.
There is irony in this, because of the four structural elements
in the Constitution just mentioned, federalism was the unique
contribution of the Framers to political science and political
theory. See Friendly, Federalism: A Foreword, 86
576
Yale L. J. 1019 (1977); G. Wood, The Creation of the American
Republic, 1776-1787, pp. 524-532, 564 (1969). Though on the surface
the idea may seem counterintuitive, it was the insight of the
Framers that freedom was enhanced by the creation of two
governments, not one. "In the compound republic of America, the
power surrendered by the people is first divided between two
distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each
subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double
security arises to the rights of the people. The different
governments will control each other, at the same time that each
will be controlled by itself." The Federalist No. 51, p. 323 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). See also
Gregory v.
Ashcroft, 501
U. S. 452, 458-459 (1991) ("Just as the separation and
independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government
serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in anyone
branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the
Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from
either front .... In the tension between federal and state power
lies the promise of liberty");
New York v.
United States,
supra, at 181 ("[T]he Constitution divides authority between
federal and state governments for the protection of individuals.
State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: 'Rather, federalism
secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of
sovereign power''') (quoting
Coleman v.
Thompson,
501 U. S. 722,
759 (1991) (Blackmun, J., dissenting)).
The theory that two governments accord more liberty than one
requires for its realization two distinct and discernable lines of
political accountability: one between the citizens and the Federal
Government; the second between the citizens and the States. If, as
Madison expected, the Federal and State Governments are to control
each other, see The Federalist No. 51, and hold each other in check
by competing for the affections of the people, see The Federalist
No. 46, those citizens must have some means of knowing which of
577
the two governments to hold accountable for the failure to
perform a given function. "Federalism serves to assign political
responsibility, not to obscure it."
FTC v.
Ticor Title
Ins. Co., 504 U.
S. 621, 636 (1992). Were the Federal Government to take over
the regulation of entire areas of traditional state concern, areas
having nothing to do with the regulation of commercial activities,
the boundaries between the spheres of federal and state authority
would blur and political responsibility would become illusory. Cf.
New York v.
United States, supra, at 155-169;
FERC v.
Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 787 (1982)
(O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
part). The resultant inability to hold either branch of the
government answerable to the citizens is more dangerous even than
devolving too much authority to the remote central power.
To be sure, one conclusion that could be drawn from The
Federalist Papers is that the balance between national and state
power is entrusted in its entirety to the political process.
Madison's observation that "the people ought not surely to be
precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may
discover it to be most due," The Federalist No. 46, p. 295 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961), can be interpreted to say that the essence of
responsibility for a shift in power from the State to the Federal
Government rests upon a political judgment, though he added
assurance that "the State governments could have little to
apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the
federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously
administered,"
ibid. Whatever the judicial role, it is
axiomatic that Congress does have substantial discretion and
control over the federal balance.
For these reasons, it would be mistaken and mischievous for the
political branches to forget that the sworn obligation to preserve
and protect the Constitution in maintaining the federal balance is
their own in the first and primary instance. In the Webster-Hayne
Debates, see The Great Speeches and
578
Orations of Daniel Webster 227-272 (E. Whipple ed. 1879), and
the debates over the Civil Rights Acts, see Hearings on S. 1732
before the Senate Committee on Commerce, 88th Cong., 1st Sess.,
pts. 1-3 (1963), some Congresses have accepted responsibility to
confront the great questions of the proper federal balance in terms
of lasting consequences for the constitutional design. The
political branches of the Government must fulfill this grave
constitutional obligation if democratic liberty and the federalism
that secures it are to endure.
At the same time, the absence of structural mechanisms to
require those officials to undertake this principled task, and the
momentary political convenience often attendant upon their failure
to do so, argue against a complete renunciation of the judicial
role. Although it is the obligation of all officers of the
Government to respect the constitutional design, see
Public
Citizen v.
Department of Justice, 491 U. S. 440, 466
(1989);
Rostker v.
Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 64 (1981),
the federal balance is too essential a part of our constitutional
structure and plays too vital a role in securing freedom for us to
admit inability to intervene when one or the other level of
Government has tipped the scales too far.
In the past this Court has participated in maintaining the
federal balance through judicial exposition of doctrines such as
abstention, see,
e. g., Younger v.
Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971);
Railroad Comm'n of Tex. v.
Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941);
Burford v.
Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315 (1943), the
rules for determining the primacy of state law, see,
e. g., Erie
R. Co. v.
Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), the
doctrine of adequate and independent state grounds, see,
e. g.,
Murdock v.
Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875);
Michigan
v.
Long, 463
U. S. 1032 (1983), the whole jurisprudence of pre-emption, see,
e. g., Rice v.
Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218 (1947);
Cipollone v.
Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504 (1992), and
many of the rules governing our habeas jurisprudence, see,
e.
g., Coleman v.
Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991);
McCleskey
579
v.
Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991);
Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989);
Rose v.
Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982);
Wainwright v.
Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977).
Our ability to preserve this principle under the Commerce Clause
has presented a much greater challenge. See
supra, at
568-574. "This clause has throughout the Court's history been the
chief source of its adjudications regarding federalism," and "no
other body of opinions affords a fairer or more revealing test of
judicial qualities." Frankfurter 66-67. But as the branch whose
distinctive duty it is to declare "what the law is,"
Marbury
v.
Madison, 1 Cranch, at 177, we are often called upon to
resolve questions of constitutional law not susceptible to the
mechanical application of bright and clear lines. The substantial
element of political judgment in Commerce Clause matters leaves our
institutional capacity to intervene more in doubt than when we
decide cases, for instance, under the Bill of Rights even though
clear and bright lines are often absent in the latter class of
disputes. See
County of Allegheny v.
American Civil
Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 630 (1989)
(O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("We
cannot avoid the obligation to draw lines, often close and
difficult lines" in adjudicating constitutional rights). But our
cases do not teach that we have no role at all in determining the
meaning of the Commerce Clause.
Our position in enforcing the dormant Commerce Clause is
instructive. The Court's doctrinal approach in that area has
likewise "taken some turns."
Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v.
Jefferson Lines, Inc., ante, at 180. Yet in contrast to the
prevailing skepticism that surrounds our ability to give meaning to
the explicit text of the Commerce Clause, there is widespread
acceptance of our authority to enforce the dormant Commerce Clause,
which we have but inferred from the constitutional structure as a
limitation on the power of the States. One element of our dormant
Commerce Clause jurisprudence has been the principle that the
States may not
580
impose regulations that place an undue burden on interstate
commerce, even where those regulations do not discriminate between
in-state and out-of-state businesses. See
BrownForman Distillers
Corp. v.
New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573, 579 (1986)
(citing
Pike v.
Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142
(1970)). Distinguishing between regulations that do place an undue
burden on interstate commerce and regulations that do not depends
upon delicate judgments. True, if we invalidate a state law,
Congress can in effect overturn our judgment, whereas in a case
announcing that Congress has transgressed its authority, the
decision is more consequential, for it stands unless Congress can
revise its law to demonstrate its commercial character. This
difference no doubt informs the circumspection with which we
invalidate an Act of Congress, but it does not mitigate our duty to
recognize meaningful limits on the commerce power of Congress.
The statute before us upsets the federal balance to a degree
that renders it an unconstitutional assertion of the commerce
power, and our intervention is required. As THE CHIEF JUSTICE
explains, unlike the earlier cases to come before the Court here
neither the actors nor their conduct has a commercial character,
and neither the purposes nor the design of the statute has an
evident commercial nexus. See
ante, at 559-561. The statute
makes the simple possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of the
grounds of the school a criminal offense. In a sense any conduct in
this interdependent world of ours has an ultimate commercial origin
or consequence, but we have not yet said the commerce power may
reach so far. If Congress attempts that extension, then at the
least we must inquire whether the exercise of national power seeks
to intrude upon an area of traditional state concern.
An interference of these dimensions occurs here, for it is well
established that education is a traditional concern of the States.
Milliken v.
Bradley, 418 U. S. 717, 741-742
(1974);
581
Epperson v.
Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968).
The proximity to schools, including of course schools owned and
operated by the States or their subdivisions, is the very premise
for making the conduct criminal. In these circumstances, we have a
particular duty to ensure that the federal-state balance is not
destroyed. Cf.
Rice, supra, at 230 ("[W]e start with the
assumption that the historic police powers of the States" are not
displaced by a federal statute "unless that was the clear and
manifest purpose of Congress");
Florida Lime &
Avocado Growers, Inc. v.
Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 146
(1963).
While it is doubtful that any State, or indeed any reasonable
person, would argue that it is wise policy to allow students to
carry guns on school premises, considerable disagreement exists
about how best to accomplish that goal. In this circumstance, the
theory and utility of our federalism are revealed, for the States
may perform their role as laboratories for experimentation to
devise various solutions where the best solution is far from clear.
See
San Antonio Independent School Dist. v.
Rodriguez, 411
U. S. 1, 49-50 (1973);
New State Ice Co. v.
Liebmann, 285
U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
If a State or municipality determines that harsh criminal
sanctions are necessary and wise to deter students from carrying
guns on school premises, the reserved powers of the States are
sufficient to enact those measures. Indeed, over 40 States already
have criminal laws outlawing the possession of firearms on or near
school grounds. See,
e. g., Alaska Stat. Ann. §§
11.61.195(a)(2)(A), 11.61.220(a)(4)(A) (Supp. 1994); Cal. Penal
Code Ann. § 626.9 (West Supp. 1994); Mass. Gen. Laws § 269:10(j)
(1992); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-5(e) (West Supp. 1994); Va. Code
Ann. § 18.2-308.1 (1988); Wis. Stat. § 948.605 (1991-1992).
Other, more practicable means to rid the schools of guns may be
thought by the citizens of some States to be preferable for the
safety and welfare of the schools those States are
582
charged with maintaining. See Brief for National Conference of
State Legislatures et al. as
Amici Curiae 26-30 (injection
of federal officials into local problems causes friction and
diminishes political accountability of state and local
governments). These might include inducements to inform on
violators where the information leads to arrests or confiscation of
the guns, see Lima, Schools May Launch Weapons Hot Line, Los
Angeles Times, Ventura Cty. East ed., Jan. 13, 1995, p. B1, col. 5;
Reward for Tips on Guns in Tucson Schools, The Arizona Republic,
Jan. 7, 1995, p. B2; programs to encourage the voluntary surrender
of guns with some provision for amnesty, see Zaidan, Akron Rallies
to Save Youths, The Plain Dealer, Mar. 2, 1995, p. 1B; Swift,
Legislators Consider Plan to Get Guns Off Streets, Hartford
Courant, Apr. 29, 1992, p. A4; penalties imposed on parents or
guardians for failure to supervise the child, see,
e.
g., Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, § 858 (Supp. 1995) (fining parents
who allow students to possess firearm at school); Tenn. Code Ann. §
3917-1312 (Supp. 1992) (misdemeanor for parents to allow student to
possess firearm at school); Straight Shooter: Gov. Casey's
Reasonable Plan to Control Assault Weapons, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, Mar. 14, 1994, p. B2 (proposed bill); Bailey,
Anti-Crime Measures Top Legislators' Agenda, Los Angeles Times,
Orange Cty. ed., Mar. 7, 1994, p. B1, col. 2 (same); Krupa, New
Gun-Control Plans Could Tighten Local Law, The Boston Globe, June
20, 1993, p. 29; laws providing for suspension or expulsion of
gun-toting students, see,
e. g., Ala. Code §
16-1-24.1 (Supp. 1994); Ind. Code § 20-8.1-54(b)(1)(D) (1993); Ky.
Rev. Stat. Ann. § 158.150(1)(a) (Michie 1992); Wash. Rev. Code §
9.41.280 (1994), or programs for expulsion with assignment to
special facilities, see Martin, Legislators Poised to Take Harsher
Stand on Guns in Schools, The Seattle Times, Feb. 1, 1995, p. B1
(automatic year-long expulsion for students with guns and intense
semester-long reentry program).
583
The statute now before us forecloses the States from
experimenting and exercising their own judgment in an area to which
States lay claim by right of history and expertise, and it does so
by regulating an activity beyond the realm of commerce in the
ordinary and usual sense of that term. The tendency of this statute
to displace state regulation in areas of traditional state concern
is evident from its territorial operation. There are over 100,000
elementary and secondary schools in the United States. See U. S.
Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
Digest of Education Statistics 73, 104 (NCES 94-115, 1994) (Tables
63, 94). Each of these now has an invisible federal zone extending
1,000 feet beyond the (often irregular) boundaries of the school
property. In some communities no doubt it would be difficult to
navigate without infringing on those zones. Yet throughout these
areas, school officials would find their own programs for the
prohibition of guns in danger of displacement by the federal
authority unless the State chooses to enact a parallel rule.
This is not a case where the etiquette of federalism has been
violated by a formal command from the National Government directing
the State to enact a certain policy, cf.
New York v.
United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992), or
to organize its governmental functions in a certain way, cf.
FERC v.
Mississippi, 456 U. S., at 781 (O'CONNOR, J.,
concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). While the
intrusion on state sovereignty may not be as severe in this
instance as in some of our recent Tenth Amendment cases, the
intrusion is nonetheless significant. Absent a stronger connection
or identification with commercial concerns that are central to the
Commerce Clause, that interference contradicts the federal balance
the Framers designed and that this Court is obliged to enforce.
For these reasons, I join in the opinion and judgment of the
Court.
584
JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.
The Court today properly concludes that the Commerce Clause does
not grant Congress the authority to prohibit gun possession within
1,000 feet of a school, as it attempted to do in the Gun-Free
School Zones Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-647, 104 Stat. 4844. Although
I join the majority, I write separately to observe that our case
law has drifted far from the original understanding of the Commerce
Clause. In a future case, we ought to temper our Commerce Clause
jurisprudence in a manner that both makes sense of our more recent
case law and is more faithful to the original understanding of that
Clause.
We have said that Congress may regulate not only "Commerce ...
among the several States," U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, but
also anything that has a "substantial effect" on such commerce.
This test, if taken to its logical extreme, would give Congress a
"police power" over all aspects of American life. Unfortunately, we
have never come to grips with this implication of our substantial
effects formula. Although we have supposedly applied the
substantial effects test for the past 60 years, we
always
have rejected readings of the Commerce Clause and the scope of
federal power that would permit Congress to exercise a police
power; our cases are quite clear that there are real limits to
federal power. See
New York v.
United States,
505 U. S. 144,
155 (1992) ("[N]o one disputes the proposition that '[t]he
Constitution created a Federal Government of limited powers''')
(quoting
Gregory v.
Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457
(1991);
Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196
(1968);
NLRB v.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel
Corp., 301 U. S.
1, 37 (1937). Cf.
Chisholm v.
Georgia, 2 Dall.
419, 435 (1793) (Iredell, J.) ("Each State in the Union is
sovereign as to all the powers reserved. It must necessarily be so,
because the United States have no claim to any authority but such
as the States have surrendered to them") (emphasis deleted).
Indeed, on this crucial point, the majority and JUSTICE BREYER
agree in principle: The Federal
585
Government has nothing approaching a police power. Compare
ante, at 556-558, with
post, at 624.
While the principal dissent concedes that there are limits to
federal power, the sweeping nature of our current test enables the
dissent to argue that Congress can regulate gun possession. But it
seems to me that the power to regulate "commerce" can by no means
encompass authority over mere gun possession, any more than it
empowers the Federal Government to regulate marriage, littering, or
cruelty to animals, throughout the 50 States. Our Constitution
quite properly leaves such matters to the individual States,
notwithstanding these activities' effects on interstate commerce.
Any interpretation of the Commerce Clause that even suggests that
Congress could regulate such matters is in need of
reexamination.
In an appropriate case, I believe that we must further
reconsider our "substantial effects" test with an eye toward
constructing a standard that reflects the text and history of the
Commerce Clause without totally rejecting our more recent Commerce
Clause jurisprudence.
Today, however, I merely support the Court's conclusion with a
discussion of the text, structure, and history of the Commerce
Clause and an analysis of our early case law. My goal is simply to
show how far we have departed from the original understanding and
to demonstrate that the result we reach today is by no means
"radical," see
post, at 602 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). I
also want to point out the necessity of refashioning a coherent
test that does not tend to "obliterate the distinction between what
is national and what is local and create a completely centralized
government."
Jones &
Laughlin Steel Corp., supra,
at 37.
I
At the time the original Constitution was ratified, "commerce"
consisted of selling, buying, and bartering, as well as
transporting for these purposes. See 1 S. Johnson, A Dic-
586
tionary of the English Language 361 (4th ed. 1773) (defining
commerce as "Intercour[sJe; exchange of one thing for another;
interchange of any thing; trade; traffick"); N. Bailey, An
Universal Etymological English Dictionary (26th ed. 1789) ("trade
or traffic"); T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English
Language (6th ed. 1796) ("Exchange of one thing for another; trade,
traffick"). This understanding finds support in the etymology of
the word, which literally means "with merchandise." See 3 Oxford
English Dictionary 552 (2d ed. 1989) (com-"with";
merci-"merchandise"). In fact, when Federalists and
Anti-Federalists discussed the Commerce Clause during the
ratification period, they often used trade (in its
selling/bartering sense) and commerce interchangeably. See The
Federalist No.4, p. 22 (J. Jay) (asserting that countries will
cultivate our friendship when our "trade" is prudently regulated by
Federal Government); 1
id., No.7, at 39-40 (A. Hamilton)
(discussing "competitions of commerce" between States resulting
from state "regulations of trade");
id., No. 40, at 262 (J.
Madison) (asserting that it was an "acknowledged object of the
Convention ... that the regulation of trade should be submitted to
the general government"); Lee, Letters of a Federal Farmer No.5, in
Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States 319 (P. Ford ed.
1888); Smith, An Address to the People of the State of New-York, in
id., at 107.
As one would expect, the term "commerce" was used in
contradistinction to productive activities such as manufacturing
and agriculture. Alexander Hamilton, for example, repeatedly
treated commerce, agriculture, and manufacturing as three separate
endeavors. See,
e. g., The Federalist No. 36, at 224
(referring to "agriculture, commerce, manufactures");
id.,
No. 21, at 133 (distinguishing commerce, arts, and industry);
id., No. 12, at 74 (asserting that commerce and agriculture
have shared interests). The same distinctions
1 All references to The Federalist are to the Jacob E. Cooke
1961 edition.
587
were made in the state ratification conventions. See,
e.
g., 2 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the
Adoption of the Federal Constitution 57 (J. Elliot ed. 1836)
(hereinafter Debates) (T. Dawes at Massachusetts convention);
id., at 336 (M. Smith at New York convention).
Moreover, interjecting a modern sense of commerce into the
Constitution generates significant textual and structural problems.
For example, one cannot replace "commerce" with a different type of
enterprise, such as manufacturing. When a manufacturer produces a
car, assembly cannot take place "with a foreign nation" or "with
the Indian Tribes." Parts may come from different States or other
nations and hence may have been in the flow of commerce at one
time, but manufacturing takes place at a discrete site. Agriculture
and manufacturing involve the production of goods; commerce
encompasses traffic in such articles.
The Port Preference Clause also suggests that the term
"commerce" denoted sale and/or transport rather than business
generally. According to that Clause, "[n]o Preference shall be
given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one
State over those of another." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 6.
Although it is possible to conceive of regulations of manufacturing
or farming that prefer one port over another, the more natural
reading is that the Clause prohibits Congress from using its
commerce power to channel commerce through certain favored
ports.
The Constitution not only uses the word "commerce" in a narrower
sense than our case law might suggest, it also does not support the
proposition that Congress has authority over all activities that
"substantially affect" interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause 2
does not state that Congress may
2 Even to speak of "the Commerce Clause" perhaps obscures the
actual scope of that Clause. As an original matter, Congress did
not have authority to regulate all commerce; Congress could only
"regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several
States, and with the Indian Tribes." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl.
3. Although the precise line between
588
"regulate matters that substantially affect commerce with
foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian
Tribes." In contrast, the Constitution itself temporarily
prohibited amendments that would "affect" Congress' lack of
authority to prohibit or restrict the slave trade or to enact
unproportioned direct taxation. Art. V. Clearly, the Framers could
have drafted a Constitution that contained a "substantially affects
interstate commerce" Clause had that been their objective.
In addition to its powers under the Commerce Clause, Congress
has the authority to enact such laws as are "necessary and proper"
to carry into execution its power to regulate commerce among the
several States. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. But on this
Court's understanding of congressional power under these two
Clauses, many of Congress' other enumerated powers under Art. I, §
8, are wholly superfluous. After all, if Congress may regulate all
matters that substantially affect commerce, there is no need for
the Constitution to specify that Congress may enact bankruptcy
laws, cl. 4, or coin money and fix the standard of weights and
measures, cl. 5, or punish counterfeiters of United States coin and
securities, cl. 6. Likewise, Congress would not need the separate
authority to establish post offices and post roads, cl. 7, or to
grant patents and copyrights, cl. 8, or to "punish Piracies and
Felonies committed on the high Seas," cl. 10. It might not even
need the power to raise and support an Army and Navy, cls. 12 and
13, for fewer people would engage in commercial shipping if they
thought that a foreign power could expropriate their property with
ease. Indeed, if Congress could regulate matters that substantially
affect interstate commerce, there would have been no need to
spec-
interstate/foreign commerce and purely intrastate commerce was
hard to draw, the Court attempted to adhere to such a line for the
first 150 years of our Nation. See
infra, at 593-599.
589
ify that Congress can regulate international trade and commerce
with the Indians. As the Framers surely understood, these other
branches of trade substantially affect interstate commerce.
Put simply, much if not all of Art. I, § 8 (including portions
of the Commerce Clause itself), would be surplusage if Congress had
been given authority over matters that substantially affect
interstate commerce. An interpretation of cl. 3 that makes the rest
of § 8 superfluous simply cannot be correct. Yet this Court's
Commerce Clause jurisprudence has endorsed just such an
interpretation: The power we have accorded Congress has swallowed
Art. I, § 8.3
Indeed, if a "substantial effects" test can be appended to the
Commerce Clause, why not to every other power of the Federal
Government? There is no reason for singling out the Commerce Clause
for special treatment. Accordingly, Congress could regulate all
matters that "substantially affect" the Army and Navy,
bankruptcies, tax collection, expenditures, and so on. In that
case, the Clauses of § 8 all mutually overlap, something we can
assume the Founding Fathers never intended.
Our construction of the scope of congressional authority has the
additional problem of coming close to turning the Tenth Amendment
on its head. Our case law could be read to reserve to the United
States all powers not expressly
prohibited by the
Constitution. Taken together, these fundamental textual problems
should, at the very least, convince us that the "substantial
effects" test should be reexamined.
3 There are other powers granted to Congress outside of Art. I,
§ 8, that may become wholly superfluous as well due to our
distortion of the Commerce Clause. For instance, Congress has
plenary power over the District of Columbia and the territories.
See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 17, and Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. The
grant of comprehensive legislative power over certain areas of the
Nation, when read in conjunction with the rest of the Constitution,
further confirms that Congress was not ceded plenary authority over
the
whole Nation.
590
II
The exchanges during the ratification campaign reveal the
relatively limited reach of the Commerce Clause and of federal
power generally. The Founding Fathers confirmed that most areas of
life (even many matters that would have substantial effects on
commerce) would remain outside the reach of the Federal Government.
Such affairs would continue to be under the exclusive control of
the States.
Early Americans understood that commerce, manufacturing, and
agriculture, while distinct activities, were intimately related and
dependent on each other-that each "substantially affected" the
others. After all, items produced by farmers and manufacturers were
the primary articles of commerce at the time. If commerce was more
robust as a result of federal superintendence, farmers and
manufacturers could benefit. Thus, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut
attempted to convince farmers of the benefits of regulating
commerce. "Your property and riches depend on a ready demand and
generous price for the produce you can annually spare," he wrote,
and these conditions exist "where trade flourishes and when the
merchant can freely export the produce of the country" to nations
that will pay the highest price. A Landholder No.1, Connecticut
Courant, Nov. 5, 1787, in 3 Documentary History of the Ratification
of the Constitution 399 (M. Jensen ed. 1978) (hereinafter
Documentary History). See also The Federalist No. 35, at 219 (A.
Hamilton) ("[D]iscerning citizens are well aware that the mechanic
and manufacturing arts furnish the materials of mercantile
enterprise and industry. Many of them indeed are immediately
connected with the operations of commerce. They know that the
merchant is their natural patron and friend");
id., at 221
("Will not the merchant ... be disposed to cultivate ... the
interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts to which his
commerce is so nearly allied?"); A Jerseyman: To the Citizens of
New Jersey, Trenton Mercury, Nov. 6, 1787, in 3 Documentary History
147 (noting that agriculture will serve as
591
a "source of commerce"); Marcus, The New Jersey Journal, Nov.
14, 1787,
id., at 152 (both the mechanic and the farmer
benefit from the prosperity of commerce). William Davie, a delegate
to the North Carolina Convention, illustrated the close link best:
"Commerce, sir, is the nurse of [agriculture and manufacturing].
The merchant furnishes the planter with such articles as he cannot
manufacture himself, and finds him a market for his produce.
Agriculture cannot flourish if commerce languishes; they are
mutually dependent on each other." 4 Debates 20.
Yet, despite being well aware that agriculture, manufacturing,
and other matters substantially affected commerce, the founding
generation did not cede authority over all these activities to
Congress. Hamilton, for instance, acknowledged that the Federal
Government could not regulate agriculture and like concerns:
"The administration of private justice between the citizens of
the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other
concerns of a similar nature, all those things in short which are
proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be
desirable cares of a general jurisdiction." The Federalist No. 17,
at 106.
In the unlikely event that the Federal Government would attempt
to exercise authority over such matters, its effort "would be as
troublesome as it would be nugatory."
Ibid.4
4 Cf. 3 Debates 40 (E. Pendleton at the Virginia convention)
(The proposed Federal Government "does not intermeddle with the
local, particular affairs of the states. Can Congress legislate for
the state of Virginia? Can [it] make a law altering the form of
transferring property, or the rule of descents, in Virginia?");
id., at 553 (J. Marshall at the Virginia convention)
(denying that Congress could make "laws affecting the mode of
transferring property, or contracts, or claims, between citizens of
the same state"); The Federalist No. 33, at 206 (A. Hamilton)
(denying that Congress could change laws of descent or could
pre-empt a land tax); A Native of Virginia: Observations upon the
Proposed Plan of Federal Government, Apr. 2, 1788, in 9 Documentary
History 692 (States have sole authority over "rules of
property").
592
The comments of Hamilton and others about federal power
reflected the well-known truth that the new Government would have
only the limited and enumerated powers found in the Constitution.
See,
e. g., 2 Debates 267-268 (A. Hamilton at New
York Convention) (noting that there would be just cause for
rejecting the Constitution if it would enable the Federal
Government to "alter, or abrogate ... [a State's] civil and
criminal institutions [or] penetrate the recesses of domestic life,
and control, in all respects, the private conduct of individuals");
The Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison); 3 Debates 259 (J.
Madison) (Virginia Convention); R. Sherman & O. Ellsworth,
Letter to Governor Huntington, Sept. 26, 1787, in 3 Documentary
History 352; J. Wilson, Speech in the State House Yard, Oct. 6,
1787, in 2
id., at 167-168. Agriculture and manufacture,
since they were not surrendered to the Federal Government, were
state concerns. See The Federalist No. 34, at 212-213 (A. Hamilton)
(observing that the "internal encouragement of agriculture and
manufactures" was an object of
state expenditure). Even
before the passage of the Tenth Amendment, it was apparent that
Congress would possess only those powers "herein granted" by the
rest of the Constitution. Art. I, § 1.
Where the Constitution was meant to grant federal authority over
an activity substantially affecting interstate commerce, the
Constitution contains an enumerated power over that particular
activity. Indeed, the Framers knew that many of the other
enumerated powers in § 8 dealt with matters that substantially
affected interstate commerce. Madison, for instance, spoke of the
bankruptcy power as being "intimately connected with the regulation
of commerce." The Federalist No. 42, at 287. Likewise, Hamilton
urged that "[i]f we mean to be a commercial people or even to be
secure on our Atlantic side, we must endeavour as soon as possible
to have a navy."
Id., No. 24, at 157.
In short, the Founding Fathers were well aware of what the
principal dissent calls "'economic ... realities.'" See
593
post, at 625 (BREYER, J.) (quoting
North American
Co. v.
SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705
(1946)). Even though the boundary between commerce and other
matters may ignore "economic reality" and thus seem arbitrary or
artificial to some, we must nevertheless respect a constitutional
line that does not grant Congress power over all that substantially
affects interstate commerce.
III
If the principal dissent's understanding of our early case law
were correct, there might be some reason to doubt this view of the
original understanding of the Constitution. According to that
dissent, Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), established that Congress may
control all local activities that "significantly affect interstate
commerce,"
post, at 615. And, "with the exception of one
wrong turn subsequently corrected," this has been the
"traditiona[l]" method of interpreting the Commerce Clause.
Post, at 631 (citing
Gibbons and
United States
v.
Darby, 312
U. S. 100, 116-117 (1941)).
In my view, the dissent is wrong about the holding and reasoning
of
Gibbons. Because this error leads the dissent to
characterize the first 150 years of this Court's case law as a
"wrong turn," I feel compelled to put the last 50 years in proper
perspective.
A
In
Gibbons, the Court examined whether a federal law that
licensed ships to engage in the "coasting trade" preempted a New
York law granting a 30-year monopoly to Robert Livingston and
Robert Fulton to navigate the State's waterways by steamship. In
concluding that it did, the Court noted that Congress could
regulate "navigation" because "[a]ll America ... has uniformly
understood, the word 'commerce,' to comprehend navigation. It was
so understood, and must have been so understood, when the
constitution was framed." 9 Wheat., at 190. The Court also ob-
594
served that federal power over commerce "among the several
States" meant that Congress could regulate commerce conducted
partly within a State. Because a portion of interstate commerce and
foreign commerce would almost always take place within one or more
States, federal power over interstate and foreign commerce
necessarily would extend into the States.
Id., at
194-196.
At the same time, the Court took great pains to make clear that
Congress could
not regulate commerce "which is completely
internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or
between different parts of the same State, and which does not
extend to or affect other States."
Id., at 194. Moreover,
while suggesting that the Constitution might not permit States to
regulate interstate or foreign commerce, the Court observed that
"[i]nspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every
description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce
of a State" were but a small part "of that immense mass of
legislation ... not surrendered to a general government."
Id., at 203. From an early moment, the Court rejected the
notion that Congress can regulate everything that affects
interstate commerce. That the internal commerce of the States and
the numerous state inspection, quarantine, and health laws had
substantial effects on interstate commerce cannot be doubted.
Nevertheless, they were not "surrendered to the general
government."
Of course, the principal dissent is not the first to misconstrue
Gibbons. For instance, the Court has stated that
Gibbons "described the federal commerce power with a breadth
never yet exceeded."
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 120
(1942). See also
Perez v.
United States, 402 U. S. 146, 151 (1971)
(claiming that with
Darby and
Wickard, "the broader
view of the Commerce Clause announced by Chief Justice Marshall had
been restored"). I believe that this misreading stems from two
statements in
Gibbons.
First, the Court made the uncontroversial claim that federal
power does not encompass
"commerce" that "does
595
not extend to or affect other States." 9 Wheat., at 194
(emphasis added). From this statement, the principal dissent infers
that whenever an activity affects interstate commerce, it
necessarily follows that Congress can regulate such activities. Of
course, Chief Justice Marshall said no such thing and the inference
the dissent makes cannot be drawn.
There is a much better interpretation of the "affect[s]"
language: Because the Court had earlier noted that the commerce
power did not extend to wholly intrastate commerce, the Court was
acknowledging that although the line between intrastate and
interstate/foreign commerce would be difficult to draw, federal
authority could not be construed to cover purely intrastate
commerce. Commerce that did not affect another State could
never be said to be commerce "among the several States."
But even if one were to adopt the dissent's reading, the
"affect[s]" language, at most, permits Congress to regulate only
intrastate
commerce that substantially affects interstate
and foreign commerce. There is no reason to believe that Chief
Justice Marshall was asserting that Congress could regulate
all activities that affect interstate commerce. See
ibid.
The second source of confusion stems from the Court's praise for
the Constitution's division of power between the States and the
Federal Government:
"The genius and character of the whole government seem to be,
that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of
the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States
generally; but not to those which are completely within a
particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which
it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some
of the general powers of the government." Id., at 195.
596
In this passage, the Court merely was making the well understood
point that the Constitution commits matters of "national" concern
to Congress and leaves "local" matters to the States. The Court was
not saying that whatever Congress believes is a national
matter becomes an object of federal control. The matters of
national concern are enumerated in the Constitution: war, taxes,
patents, and copyrights, uniform rules of naturalization and
bankruptcy, types of commerce, and so on. See generally Art. I, §
8.
Gibbons' emphatic statements that Congress could not
regulate many matters that affect commerce confirm that the Court
did not read the Commerce Clause as granting Congress control over
matters that "affect the States generally." 5
Gibbons simply
cannot be construed as the principal dissent would have it.
B
I am aware of no cases prior to the New Deal that characterized
the power flowing from the Commerce Clause as sweepingly as does
our substantial effects test. My review of the case law indicates
that the substantial effects test is but an innovation of the 20th
century.
Even before
Gibbons, Chief Justice Marshall, writing for
the Court in
Cohens v.
Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264 (1821),
noted that Congress had "no general right to punish murder
committed within any of the States,"
id., at 426, and that
it was "clear that congress cannot punish felonies generally,"
id., at 428. The Court's only qualification was that
Congress could enact such laws for places where it enjoyed plenary
powers-for instance, over the District of Columbia.
Id., at
426. Thus, whatever effect ordinary murders, or robbery, or gun
possession might have on interstate commerce (or on any
5 None of the other Commerce Clause opinions during Chief
Justice Marshall's tenure, which concerned the "dormant" Commerce
Clause, even suggested that Congress had authority over all matters
substantially affecting commerce. See
Brown v.
Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419 (1827);
Willson v.
Black
Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245 (1829).
597
other subject of federal concern) was irrelevant to the question
of congressional power.6
United States v.
Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41 (1870), marked
the first time the Court struck down a federal law as exceeding the
power conveyed by the Commerce Clause. In a two-page opinion, the
Court invalidated a nationwide law prohibiting all sales of naphtha
and illuminating oils. In so doing, the Court remarked that the
Commerce Clause "has always been understood as limited by its
terms; and as a virtual denial of any power to interfere with the
internal trade and business of the separate States."
Id., at
44. The law in question was "plainly a regulation of police," which
could have constitutional application only where Congress had
exclusive authority, such as the territories.
Id., at 44-45.
See also
License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 470-471 (1867)
(Congress cannot interfere with the internal commerce and business
of a State);
Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82 (1879)
(Congress
6 It is worth noting that Congress, in the first federal
criminal Act, did not establish nationwide prohibitions against
murder and the like. See Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, 1 Stat. 112.
To be sure, Congress outlawed murder, manslaughter, maiming, and
larceny, but only when those acts were either committed on United
States territory not part of a State or on the high seas.
Ibid. See U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 10 (authorizing
Congress to outlaw piracy and felonies on high seas); Art. IV, § 3,
cl. 2 (plenary authority over United States territory and
property). When Congress did enact nationwide criminal laws, it
acted pursuant to direct grants of authority found in the
Constitution. Compare Act of Apr. 30,
1790, supra, §§ 1 and
14 (prohibitions against treason and the counterfeiting of U. S.
securities), with U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 6
(counterfeiting); Art. III, §3, cl. 2 (treason). Notwithstanding
any substantial effects that murder, kidnaping, or gun possession
might have had on interstate commerce, Congress understood that it
could not establish nationwide prohibitions.
Likewise, there were no laws in the early Congresses that
regulated manufacturing and agriculture. Nor was there
any
statute that purported to regulate activities with "substantial
effects" on interstate commerce.
598
cannot regulate internal commerce and thus may not establish
national trademark registration).
In
United States v.
E. C.
Knight Co.,
156 U. S. 1 (1895),
this Court held that mere attempts to monopolize the manufacture of
sugar could not be regulated pursuant to the Commerce Clause.
Raising echoes of the discussions of the Framers regarding the
intimate relationship between commerce and manufacturing, the Court
declared that "[c]ommerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a
part of it."
Id., at 12. The Court also approvingly quoted
from
Kidd v.
Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20 (1888):
"'No distinction is more popular to the common mind, or more
clearly expressed in economic and political literature, than that
between manufacture and commerce .... If it be held that the term
[commerce] includes the regulation of all such manufactures as are
intended to be the subject of commercial transactions in the
future, it is impossible to deny that it would also include all
productive industries that contemplate the same thing. The result
would be that Congress would be invested ... with the power to
regulate, not only manufactures, but also agriculture,
horticulture, stock raising, domestic fisheries, mining-in short,
every branch of human industry.''' E. C. Knight,
supra, at 14.
If federal power extended to these types of production
"comparatively little of business operations and affairs would be
left for state control."
Id., at 16. See also
Newberry v.
United States, 256 U. S. 232, 257 (1921)
("It is settled ... that the power to regulate interstate and
foreign commerce does not reach whatever is essential thereto.
Without agriculture, manufacturing, mining, etc., commerce could
not exist, but this fact does not suffice to subject them to the
control of Congress"). Whether or not manufacturing, agriculture,
or other matters substantially affected interstate commerce was
irrelevant.
599
As recently as 1936, the Court continued to insist that the
Commerce Clause did not reach the wholly internal business of the
States. See
Carter v.
Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 308 (1936)
(Congress may not regulate mine labor because "[t]he relation of
employer and employee is a local relation"); see also
A. L. A.
Schechter Poultry Corp. v.
United States, 295 U. S. 495, 543-550
(1935) (holding that Congress may not regulate intrastate sales of
sick chickens or the labor of employees involved in intrastate
poultry sales). The Federal Government simply could not reach such
subjects regardless of their effects on interstate commerce.
These cases all establish a simple point: From the time of the
ratification of the Constitution to the mid-1930's, it was widely
understood that the Constitution granted Congress only limited
powers, notwithstanding the Commerce Clause.7 Moreover, there was
no question that activities wholly separated from business, such as
gun possession, were beyond the reach of the commerce power. If
anything, the "wrong turn" was the Court's dramatic departure in
the 1930's from a century and a half of precedent.
IV
Apart from its recent vintage and its corresponding lack of any
grounding in the original understanding of the Constitution, the
substantial effects test suffers from the further
7 To be sure, congressional power pursuant to the Commerce
Clause was alternatively described less narrowly or more narrowly
during this 150year period. Compare
United States v.
Coombs, 12 Pet. 72, 78 (1838) (commerce power "extends to
such acts, done on land, which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent
the due exercise of the power to regulate [interstate and
international] commerce" such as stealing goods from a beached
ship), with
United States v.
E. C.
Knight Co.,
156 U. S. 1, 13
(1895) ("Contracts to buy, sell, or exchange goods to be
transported among the several States, the transportation and its
instrumentalities ... may be regulated, but this is because they
form part of interstate trade or commerce"). During this period,
however, this Court never held that Congress could regulate
everything that substantially affects commerce.
600
flaw that it appears to grant Congress a police power over the
Nation. When asked at oral argument if there were
any limits
to the Commerce Clause, the Government was at a loss for words. Tr.
of Oral Arg. 5. Likewise, the principal dissent insists that there
are limits, but it cannot muster even one example.
Post, at
624. Indeed, the dissent implicitly concedes that its reading has
no limits when it criticizes the Court for "threaten[ing] legal
uncertainty in an area of law that ... seemed reasonably well
settled."
Post, at 630. The one advantage of the dissent's
standard is certainty: It is certain that under its analysis
everything may be regulated under the guise of the Commerce
Clause.
The substantial effects test suffers from this flaw, in part,
because of its "aggregation principle." Under so-called "class of
activities" statutes, Congress can regulate whole categories of
activities that are not themselves either "interstate" or
"commerce." In applying the effects test, we ask whether the class
of activities
as a whole substantially affects interstate
commerce, not whether any specific activity within the class has
such effects when considered in isolation. See
Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S., at 192-193 (if class of activities is
"'within the reach of federal power,'" courts may not excise
individual applications as trivial) (quoting
Darby, 312 U.
S., at 120-121).
The aggregation principle is clever, but has no stopping point.
Suppose all would agree that gun possession within 1,000 feet of a
school does not substantially affect commerce, but that possession
of weapons generally (knives, brass knuckles, nunchakus, etc.)
does. Under our substantial effects doctrine, even though Congress
cannot single out gun possession, it can prohibit weapon possession
generally. But one
always can draw the circle broadly enough
to cover an activity that, when taken in isolation, would not have
substantial effects on commerce. Under our jurisprudence, if
Congress passed an omnibus "substantially affects interstate
commerce" statute, purporting to regulate every aspect of human
existence, the Act apparently would be constitutional.
601
Even though particular sections may govern only trivial
activities, the statute in the aggregate regulates matters that
substantially affect commerce.
v
This extended discussion of the original understanding and our
first century and a half of case law does not necessarily require a
wholesale abandonment of our more recent opinions.8 It simply
reveals that our substantial effects test is far removed from both
the Constitution and from our early case law and that the Court's
opinion should not be viewed as "radical" or another "wrong turn"
that must be corrected in the future. 9 The analysis also suggests
that we ought to temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
8 Although I might be willing to return to the original
understanding, I recognize that many believe that it is too late in
the day to undertake a fundamental reexamination of the past 60
years. Consideration of
stare decisis and reliance interests
may convince us that we cannot wipe the slate clean.
9Nor can the majority's opinion fairly be compared to
Lochner v.
New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905). See
post, at 604-609 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). Unlike
Lochner and our more recent "substantive due process" cases,
today's decision enforces only the Constitution and not "judicial
policy judgments." See
post, at 607. Notwithstanding JUSTICE
SOUTER'S discussion, "'commercial' character" is not only a natural
but an inevitable "ground of
Commerce Clause distinction."
See
post, at 608 (emphasis added). Our invalidation of the
Gun-Free School Zones Act therefore falls comfortably within our
proper role in reviewing federal legislation to determine if it
exceeds congressional authority as defined by the Constitution
itself. As John Marshall put it: "If [Congress] were to make a law
not warranted by any of the powers enumerated, it would be
considered by the judges as an infringement of the Constitution
which they are to guard .... They would declare it void." 3 Debates
553 (before the Virginia ratifying convention); see also The
Federalist No. 44, at 305 (J. Madison) (asserting that if Congress
exercises powers "not warranted by [the Constitution's] true
meaning" the judiciary will defend the Constitution);
id.,
No. 78, at 526 (A. Hamilton) (asserting that the "courts of justice
are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited constitution
against legislative encroachments"). Where, as here, there is a
case or controversy, there can be no "misstep,"
post, at
614, in enforcing the Constitution.
602
Unless the dissenting Justices are willing to repudiate our
long-held understanding of the limited nature of federal power, I
would think that they, too, must be willing to reconsider the
substantial effects test in a future case. If we wish to be true to
a Constitution that does not cede a police power to the Federal
Government, our Commerce Clause's boundaries simply cannot be
"defined" as being "'commensurate with the national needs'" or
self-consciously intended to let the Federal Government "'defend
itself against economic forces that Congress decrees inimical or
destructive of the national economy.'" See
post, at 625
(BREYER, J., dissenting) (quoting
North American Co. v.
SEC, 327 U. S., at 705). Such a formulation of federal power
is no test at all: It is a blank check.
At an appropriate juncture, I think we must modify our Commerce
Clause jurisprudence. Today, it is easy enough to say that the
Clause certainly does not empower Congress to ban gun possession
within 1,000 feet of a school.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
The welfare of our future "Commerce with foreign N ations, and
among the several States," U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, is
vitally dependent on the character of the education of our
children. I therefore agree entirely with JUSTICE BREYER'S
explanation of why Congress has ample power to prohibit the
possession of firearms in or near schools-just as it may protect
the school environment from harms posed by controlled substances
such as asbestos or alcohol. I also agree with JUSTICE SOUTER'S
exposition of the radical character of the Court's holding and its
kinship with the discredited, pre-Depression version of substantive
due process. Cf.
Dolan v.
City of Tigard, 512 U. S. 374, 405-411
(1994) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). I believe, however, that the
Court's extraordinary decision merits this additional comment.
Guns are both articles of commerce and articles that can be used
to restrain commerce. Their possession is the con-
603
sequence, either directly or indirectly, of commercial activity.
In my judgment, Congress' power to regulate commerce in firearms
includes the power to prohibit possession of guns at any location
because of their potentially harmful use; it necessarily follows
that Congress may also prohibit their possession in particular
markets. The market for the possession of handguns by school-age
children is, distressingly, substantial. * Whether or not the
national interest in eliminating that market would have justified
federal legislation in 1789, it surely does today.
JUSTICE SOUTER, dissenting.
In reviewing congressional legislation under the Commerce
Clause, we defer to what is often a merely implicit congressional
judgment that its regulation addresses a subject substantially
affecting interstate commerce "if there is any rational basis for
such a finding."
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining
&
Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276
(1981);
Preseault v.
ICC, 494 U. S. 1, 17 (1990); see
Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 190
(1968), quoting
Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 303-304
(1964). If that congressional determination is within the realm of
reason, "the only remaining question for judicial inquiry is
whether 'the means chosen by Congress [are] reasonably adapted to
the end permitted by the Constitution.'"
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining &
Reclamation Assn., Inc.,
supra, at 276, quoting
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v.
United States, 379 U. S. 241, 262
(1964); see also
Preseault v.
ICC, supra, at 17.1
*Indeed, there is evidence that firearm manufacturers-aided by a
federal grant-are specifically targeting schoolchildren as
consumers by distributing, at schools, hunting-related videos
styled "educational materials for grades four through 12," Herbert,
Reading, Writing, Reloading, N. Y. Times, Dec. 14, 1994, p. A23,
col. 1.
1 In this case, no question has been raised about means and
ends; the only issue is about the effect of school zone guns on
commerce.
604
The practice of deferring to rationally based legislative
judgments "is a paradigm of judicial restraint."
FCC v.
Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 314
(1993). In judicial review under the Commerce Clause, it reflects
our respect for the institutional competence of the Congress on a
subject expressly assigned to it by the Constitution and our
appreciation of the legitimacy that comes from Congress's political
accountability in dealing with matters open to a wide range of
possible choices. See
id., at 313-316;
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining &
Reclamation Assn., Inc.,
supra, at 276;
United States v.
Carolene Products
Co., 304 U. S.
144, 147, 151-154 (1938); cf.
Williamson v.
Lee
Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 488
(1955).
It was not ever thus, however, as even a brief overview of
Commerce Clause history during the past century reminds us. The
modern respect for the competence and primacy of Congress in
matters affecting commerce developed only after one of this Court's
most chastening experiences, when it perforce repudiated an earlier
and untenably expansive conception of judicial review in derogation
of congressional commerce power. A look at history's sequence will
serve to show how today's decision tugs the Court off course,
leading it to suggest opportunities for further developments that
would be at odds with the rule of restraint to which the Court
still wisely states adherence.
I
Notwithstanding the Court's recognition of a broad commerce
power in
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196-197 (1824)
(Marshall, C. J.), Congress saw few occasions to exercise that
power prior to Reconstruction, see generally 2 C. Warren, The
Supreme Court in United States History 729-739 (rev. ed. 1935), and
it was really the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
that opened a new age of congressional reliance on the Commerce
Clause for authority to exercise general police powers at the
national level, see
id., at
605
729-730. Although the Court upheld a fair amount of the ensuing
legislation as being within the commerce power, see,
e. g.,
Stafford v.
Wallace, 258 U. S. 495 (1922)
(upholding an Act regulating trade practices in the meat packing
industry);
Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914)
(upholding Interstate Commerce Commission order to equalize
interstate and intrastate rail rates); see generally Warren,
supra, at 729739, the period from the turn of the century to
1937 is better noted for a series of cases applying highly
formalistic notions of "commerce" to invalidate federal social and
economic legislation, see,
e. g., Carter v.
Carter Coal
Co., 298 U. S.
238, 303304 (1936) (striking Act prohibiting unfair labor
practices in coal industry as regulation of "mining" and
"production," not "commerce");
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry
Corp. v.
United States, 295 U. S. 495, 545-548
(1935) (striking congressional regulation of activities affecting
interstate commerce only "indirectly");
Hammer v.
Dagenhart, 247
U. S. 251 (1918) (striking Act prohibiting shipment in
interstate commerce of goods manufactured at factories using child
labor because the Act regulated "manufacturing," not "commerce");
Adair v.
United States, 208 U. S. 161 (1908)
(striking protection of labor union membership as outside
"commerce").
These restrictive views of commerce subject to congressional
power complemented the Court's activism in limiting the enforceable
scope of state economic regulation. It is most familiar history
that during this same period the Court routinely invalidated state
social and economic legislation under an expansive conception of
Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process. See,
e. g., Louis
K. Liggett Co. v.
Baldridge, 278 U. S. 105 (1928)
(striking state law requiring pharmacy owners to be licensed as
pharmacists);
Coppage v.
Kansas, 236 U. S. 1 (1915)
(striking state law prohibiting employers from requiring their
employees to agree not to join labor organizations);
Lochner
v.
New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905)
(striking state law establishing maximum working hours for bakers).
See generally L. Tribe, American Consti-
606
tutional Law 568-574 (2d ed. 1988). The fulcrums of judicial
review in these cases were the notions of liberty and property
characteristic of laissez-faire economics, whereas the Commerce
Clause cases turned on what was ostensibly a structural limit of
federal power, but under each conception of judicial review the
Court's character for the first third of the century showed itself
in exacting judicial scrutiny of a legislature's choice of economic
ends and of the legislative means selected to reach them.
It was not merely coincidental, then, that sea changes in the
Court's conceptions of its authority under the Due Process and
Commerce Clauses occurred virtually together, in 1937, with
West
Coast Hotel Co. v.
Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, and
NLRB v.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel Corp.,
301 U. S. 1. See
Stern, The Commerce Clause and the National Economy, 1933-1946, 59
Harv. L. Rev. 645, 674-682 (1946). In
West Coast Hotel, the
Court's rejection of a due process challenge to a state law fixing
minimum wages for women and children marked the abandonment of its
expansive protection of contractual freedom. Two weeks later,
Jones &
Laughlin affirmed congressional commerce
power to authorize NLRB injunctions against unfair labor practices.
The Court's finding that the regulated activity had a direct enough
effect on commerce has since been seen as beginning the
abandonment, for practical purposes, of the formalistic distinction
between direct and indirect effects.
In the years following these decisions, deference to legislative
policy judgments on commercial regulation became the powerful theme
under both the Due Process and Commerce Clauses, see
United
States v.
Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S., at 147-148,
152;
United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 119-121
(1941);
United States v.
Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.
S. 110, 118-119 (1942), and in due course that deference became
articulate in the standard of rationality review. In due process
litigation, the Court's statement of a rational
607
basis test came quickly. See
United States v.
Carolene
Products Co., supra, at 152; see also
Williamson v.
Lee Optical Co., supra, at 489-490. The parallel formulation
of the Commerce Clause test came later, only because complete
elimination of the direct/indirect effects dichotomy and acceptance
of the cumulative effects doctrine,
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317
U. S. 111, 125, 127-129 (1942);
United States v.
Wrightwood Dairy Co., supra, at 124-126, so far settled the
pressing issues of congressional power over commerce as to leave
the Court for years without any need to phrase a test explicitly
deferring to rational legislative judgments. The moment came,
however, with the challenge to congressional Commerce Clause
authority to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public
accommodation, when the Court simply made explicit what the earlier
cases had implied: "where we find that the legislators, in light of
the facts and testimony before them, have a rational basis for
finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of
commerce, our investigation is at an end."
Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S., at 303-304, discussing
United
States v.
Darby, supra; see
Heart of Atlanta Motel,
Inc. v.
United States, 379 U. S., at 258-259. Thus,
under commerce, as under due process, adoption of rational basis
review expressed the recognition that the Court had no sustainable
basis for subjecting economic regulation as such to judicial policy
judgments, and for the past half century the Court has no more
turned back in the direction of formalistic Commerce Clause review
(as in deciding whether regulation of commerce was sufficiently
direct) than it has inclined toward reasserting the substantive
authority of
Lochner due process (as in the inflated
protection of contractual autonomy). See,
e. g., Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S., at 190, 198;
Perez v.
United
States, 402 U. S.
146, 151-157 (1971);
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface
Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S.,
at 276, 277.
608
II
There is today, however, a backward glance at both the old
pitfalls, as the Court treats deference under the rationality rule
as subject to gradation according to the commercial or
noncommercial nature of the immediate subject of the challenged
regulation. See
ante, at 558-561. The distinction between
what is patently commercial and what is not looks much like the old
distinction between what directly affects commerce and what touches
it only indirectly. And the act of calibrating the level of
deference by drawing a line between what is patently commercial and
what is less purely so will probably resemble the process of
deciding how much interference with contractual freedom was fatal.
Thus, it seems fair to ask whether the step taken by the Court
today does anything but portend a return to the untenable
jurisprudence from which the Court extricated itself almost 60
years ago. The answer is not reassuring. To be sure, the occasion
for today's decision reflects the century's end, not its beginning.
But if it seems anomalous that the Congress of the United States
has taken to regulating school yards, the Act in question is still
probably no more remarkable than state regulation of bake shops 90
years ago. In any event, there is no reason to hope that the
Court's qualification of rational basis review will be any more
successful than the efforts at substantive economic review made by
our predecessors as the century began. Taking the Court's opinion
on its own terms, JUSTICE BREYER has explained both the hopeless
porosity of "commercial" character as a ground of Commerce Clause
distinction in America's highly connected economy, and the
inconsistency of this categorization with our rational basis
precedents from the last 50 years.
Further glosses on rationality review, moreover, may be in the
offing. Although this case turns on commercial character, the Court
gestures toward two other considerations that it might sometime
entertain in applying rational basis
609
scrutiny (apart from a statutory obligation to supply
independent proof of a jurisdictional element): does the
congressional statute deal with subjects of traditional state
regulation, and does the statute contain explicit factual findings
supporting the otherwise implicit determination that the regulated
activity substantially affects interstate commerce? Once again, any
appeal these considerations may have depends on ignoring the
painful lesson learned in 1937, for neither of the Court's
suggestions would square with rational basis scrutiny.
A
The Court observes that the Gun-Free School Zones Act operates
in two areas traditionally subject to legislation by the States,
education and enforcement of criminal law. The suggestion is either
that a connection between commerce and these subjects is remote, or
that the commerce power is simply weaker when it touches subjects
on which the States have historically been the primary legislators.
Neither suggestion is tenable. As for remoteness, it mayor may not
be wise for the National Government to deal with education, but
JUSTICE BREYER has surely demonstrated that the commercial
prospects of an illiterate State or Nation are not rosy, and no
argument should be needed to show that hijacking interstate
shipments of cigarettes can affect commerce substantially, even
though the States have traditionally prosecuted robbery. And as for
the notion that the commerce power diminishes the closer it gets to
customary state concerns, that idea has been flatly rejected, and
not long ago. The commerce power, we have often observed, is
plenary.
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining &
Reclamation Assn., Inc., supra, at 276;
United States
v.
Darby, 312 U. S., at 114; see
Garcia v.
San
Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 549-550
(1985);
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 196-197.
Justice Harlan put it this way in speaking for the Court in
Maryland v.
Wirtz:
610
"There is no general doctrine implied in the Federal
Constitution that the two governments, national and state, are each
to exercise its powers so as not to interfere with the free and
full exercise of the powers of the other .... [I]t is clear that
the Federal Government, when acting within a delegated power, may
override countervailing state interests .... As long ago as [1925],
the Court put to rest the contention that state concerns might
constitutionally 'outweigh' the importance of an otherwise valid
federal statute regulating commerce." 392 U. S., at 195-196
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
See also United States v. Darby, supra, at 114; Gregory v.
Ashcroft,
501 U. S.
452, 460 (1991); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.
S., at 147.
Nor is there any contrary authority in the reasoning of our
cases imposing clear statement rules in some instances of
legislation that would significantly alter the state-national
balance. In the absence of a clear statement of congressional
design, for example, we have refused to interpret ambiguous federal
statutes to limit fundamental state legislative prerogatives,
Gregory v.
Ashcroft, supra, at 460-464, our
understanding being that such prerogatives, through which "a State
defines itself as a sovereign," are "powers with which Congress
does not readily interfere," 501 U. S., at 460, 461. Likewise, when
faced with two plausible interpretations of a federal criminal
statute, we generally will take the alternative that does not force
us to impute an intention to Congress to use its full commerce
power to regulate conduct traditionally and ably regulated by the
States. See
United States v.
Enmons, 410 U. S. 396,411-412
(1973);
United States v.
Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349-350
(1971);
Rewis
These clear statement rules, however, are merely rules of
statutory interpretation, to be relied upon only when the
611
terms of a statute allow,
United States v.
Culbert, 435
U. S. 371, 379-380 (1978); see
Gregory v.
Ashcroft,
supra, at 470;
United States v.
Bass, supra, at
346-347, and in cases implicating Congress's historical reluctance
to trench on state legislative prerogatives or to enter into
spheres already occupied by the States,
Gregory v.
Ashcroft, supra, at 461;
United States v.
Bass,
supra, at 349; see
Rewis v.
United States, supra,
at 811-812. They are rules for determining intent when legislation
leaves intent subject to question. But our hesitance to presume
that Congress has acted to alter the state-federal status quo (when
presented with a plausible alternative) has no relevance whatever
to the enquiry whether it has the commerce power to do so or to the
standard of judicial review when Congress has definitely meant to
exercise that power. Indeed, to allow our hesitance to affect the
standard of review would inevitably degenerate into the sort of
substantive policy review that the Court found indefensible 60
years ago. The Court does not assert (and could not plausibly
maintain) that the commerce power is wholly devoid of congressional
authority to speak on any subject of traditional state concern; but
if congressional action is not forbidden absolutely when it touches
such a subject, it will stand or fall depending on the Court's view
of the strength of the legislation's commercial justification. And
here once again history raises its objections that the Court's
previous essays in overriding congressional policy choices under
the Commerce Clause were ultimately seen to suffer two fatal
weaknesses: when dealing with Acts of Congress (as distinct from
state legislation subject to review under the theory of dormant
commerce power) nothing in the Clause compelled the judicial
activism, and nothing about the judiciary as an institution made it
a superior source of policy on the subject Congress dealt with.
There is no reason to expect the lesson would be different another
time.
612
B
There remain questions about legislative findings. The Court of
Appeals expressed the view,
2 F.3d
1342, 1363-1368 (CA5 1993), that the result in this case might
well have been different if Congress had made explicit findings
that guns in schools have a substantial effect on interstate
commerce, and the Court today does not repudiate that position, see
ante, at 562-563. Might a court aided by such findings have
subjected this legislation to less exacting scrutiny (or, put
another way, should a court have deferred to such findings if
Congress had made them)? 2 The answer to either question must be
no, although as a general matter findings are important and to be
hoped for in the difficult cases.
It is only natural to look for help with a hard job, and
reviewing a claim that Congress has exceeded the commerce power is
much harder in some cases than in others. A challenge to
congressional regulation of interstate garbage hauling would be
easy to resolve; review of congressional regulation of gun
possession in school yards is more difficult, both because the link
to interstate commerce is less obvious and because of our initial
ignorance of the relevant facts. In a
2 Unlike the Court, (perhaps), I would see no reason not to
consider Congress's findings, insofar as they might be helpful in
reviewing the challenge to this statute, even though adopted in
later legislation. See the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. 103-322, § 320904, 108 Stat. 2125
("[T]he occurrence of violent crime in school zones has resulted in
a decline in the quality of education in our country; ... this
decline ... has an adverse impact on interstate commerce and the
foreign commerce of the United States; ... Congress has power,
under the interstate commerce clause and other provisions of the
Constitution, to enact measures to ensure the integrity and safety
of the Nation's schools by enactment of this subsection"). The
findings, however, go no further than expressing what is obviously
implicit in the substantive legislation, at such a conclusory level
of generality as to add virtually nothing to the record. The
Solicitor General certainly exercised sound judgment in placing no
significant reliance on these particular afterthoughts. Tr. of Oral
Arg. 24-25.
613
case comparable to this one, we may have to dig hard to make a
responsible judgment about what Congress could reasonably find,
because the case may be close, and because judges tend not to be
familiar with the facts that mayor may not make it close. But while
the ease of review may vary from case to case, it does not follow
that the standard of review should vary, much less that explicit
findings of fact would even directly address the standard.
The question for the courts, as all agree, is not whether as a
predicate to legislation Congress in fact found that a particular
activity substantially affects interstate commerce. The legislation
implies such a finding, and there is no reason to entertain claims
that Congress acted ultra vires intentionally. Nor is the question
whether Congress was correct in so finding. The only question is
whether the legislative judgment is within the realm of reason. See
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining &
Reclamation
Assn., Inc., 452 U. S., at 276-277;
Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S., at 303-304;
Railroad Retirement
Bd. v.
Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330, 391392
(1935) (Hughes, C. J., dissenting); cf.
FCC v.
Beach
Communications, Inc., 508 U. S., at 315 (in the equal
protection context, "those attacking the rationality of the
legislative classification have the burden to negate every
conceivable basis which might support it[;] ... it is entirely
irrelevant for constitutional purposes whether the conceived reason
for the challenged distinction actually motivated the legislature")
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted);
Ferguson
v.
Skrupa, 372
U. S. 726, 731-733 (1963);
Williamson v.
Lee Optical
Co., 348 U. S., at 487. Congressional findings do not, however,
directly address the question of reasonableness; they tell us what
Congress actually has found, not what it could rationally find. If,
indeed, the Court were to make the existence of explicit
congressional findings dispositive in some close or difficult cases
something other than rationality review would be afoot. The
resulting congressional obligation to justify its policy choices on
the merits would imply
614
either a judicial authority to review the justification (and,
hence, the wisdom) of those choices, or authority to require
Congress to act with some high degree of deliberateness, of which
express findings would be evidence. But review for congressional
wisdom would just be the old judicial pretension discredited and
abandoned in 1937, and review for deliberateness would be as
patently unconstitutional as an Act of Congress mandating long
opinions from this Court. Such a legislative process requirement
would function merely as an excuse for covert review of the merits
of legislation under standards never expressed and more or less
arbitrarily applied. Under such a regime, in any case, the
rationality standard of review would be a thing of the past.
On the other hand, to say that courts applying the rationality
standard may not defer to findings is not, of course, to say that
findings are pointless. They may, in fact, have great value in
telling courts what to look for, in establishing at least one frame
of reference for review, and in citing to factual authority. The
research underlying JUSTICE BREYER'S dissent was necessarily a
major undertaking; help is welcome, and it not incidentally shrinks
the risk that judicial research will miss material scattered across
the public domain or buried under pounds of legislative record.
Congressional findings on a more particular plane than this record
illustrates would accordingly have earned judicial thanks. But
thanks do not carry the day as long as rational possibility is the
touchstone, and I would not allow for the possibility, as the
Court's opinion may,
ante, at 563, that the addition of
congressional findings could in principle have affected the fate of
the statute here.
III
Because JUSTICE BREYER'S opinion demonstrates beyond any doubt
that the Act in question passes the rationality review that the
Court continues to espouse, today's decision may be seen as only a
misstep, its reasoning and its sugges-
615
tions not quite in gear with the prevailing standard, but hardly
an epochal case. I would not argue otherwise, but I would raise a
caveat. Not every epochal case has come in epochal trappings.
Jones &
Laughlin did not reject the
direct-indirect standard in so many words; it just said the
relation of the regulated subject matter to commerce was direct
enough. 301 U. S., at 41-43. But we know what happened.
I respectfully dissent.
JUSTICE BREYER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE SOUTER, and
JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting.
The issue in this case is whether the Commerce Clause authorizes
Congress to enact a statute that makes it a crime to possess a gun
in, or near, a school. 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp.
V). In my view, the statute falls well within the scope of the
commerce power as this Court has understood that power over the
last half century.
I
In reaching this conclusion, I apply three basic principles of
Commerce Clause interpretation. First, the power to "regulate
Commerce ... among the several States," U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8,
cl. 3, encompasses the power to regulate local activities insofar
as they significantly affect interstate commerce. See,
e. g.,
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194-195 (1824) (Marshall,
C. J.);
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 125
(1942). As the majority points out,
ante, at 559, the Court,
in describing how much of an effect the Clause requires, sometimes
has used the word "substantial" and sometimes has not. Compare,
e. g., Wickard, supra, at 125 ("substantial economic
effect"), with
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface Mining
& Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276 (1981)
("affects interstate commerce"); see also
Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U.
S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968) (cumulative effect must not be
"trivial");
NLRB v.
Jones &
Laughlin Steel
Corp., 301 U. S.
1, 37 (1937)
616
(speaking of "close and substantial
relation" between
activity and commerce, not of "substantial effect") (emphasis
added);
Gibbons, supra, at 194 (words of Commerce Clause do
not "comprehend ... commerce, which is completely internal ... and
which does not ... affect other States"). And, as the majority also
recognizes in quoting Justice Cardozo, the question of degree (how
much effect) requires an estimate of the "size" of the
effect that no verbal formulation can capture with precision. See
ante, at 567. I use the word "significant" because the word
"substantial" implies a somewhat narrower power than recent
precedent suggests. See,
e. g., Perez v.
United
States, 402 U. S.
146, 154 (1971);
Daniel v.
Paul, 395 U. S. 298, 308
(1969). But to speak of "substantial effect" rather than
"significant effect" would make no difference in this case.
Second, in determining whether a local activity will likely have
a significant effect upon interstate commerce, a court must
consider, not the effect of an individual act (a single instance of
gun possession), but rather the cumulative effect of all similar
instances (i.
e., the effect of all guns possessed in or
near schools). See,
e. g., Wickard, supra, at 127-128. As
this Court put the matter almost 50 years ago:
"[I]t is enough that the individual activity when multiplied
into a general practice ... contains a threat to the interstate
economy that requires preventative regulation." Mandeville
Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co.,
334 U. S. 219,
236 (1948) (citations omitted).
Third, the Constitution requires us to judge the connection
between a regulated activity and interstate commerce, not directly,
but at one remove. Courts must give Congress a degree of leeway in
determining the existence of a significant factual connection
between the regulated activity and interstate commerce-both because
the Constitution delegates the commerce power directly to Congress
and because the
617
determination requires an empirical judgment of a kind that a
legislature is more likely than a court to make with accuracy. The
traditional words "rational basis" capture this leeway. See
Hodel, supra, at 276-277. Thus, the specific question before
us, as the Court recognizes, is not whether the "regulated activity
sufficiently affected interstate commerce," but, rather, whether
Congress could have had
"a rational basis" for so
concluding.
Ante, at 557 (emphasis added).
I recognize that we must judge this matter independently.
"[S]imply because Congress may conclude that a particular activity
substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make
it so."
Hodel, supra, at 311 (REHNQUIST, J., concurring in
judgment). And, I also recognize that Congress did not write
specific "interstate commerce" findings into the law under which
Lopez was convicted. Nonetheless, as I have already noted, the
matter that we review independently (i.
e., whether there is
a "rational basis") already has considerable leeway built into it.
And, the absence of findings, at most, deprives a statute of the
benefit of some
extra leeway. This extra deference, in
principle, might change the result in a close case, though, in
practice, it has not made a critical legal difference. See,
e.
g., Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 299 (1964)
(noting that "no formal findings were made, which of course are not
necessary");
Perez, supra, at 156-157; cf.
Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v.
FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 666 (1994)
(opinion of KENNEDY, J.) ("Congress is not obligated, when enacting
its statutes, to make a record of the type that an administrative
agency or court does to accommodate judicial review");
Fullilove v.
Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 503 (1980)
(Powell, J., concurring) ("After Congress has legislated repeatedly
in an area of national concern, its Members gain experience that
may reduce the need for fresh hearings or prolonged debate ... ").
It would seem particularly unfortunate to make the validity of
618
the statute at hand turn on the presence or absence of findings.
Because Congress did make findings (though not until after Lopez
was prosecuted), doing so would appear to elevate form over
substance. See Pub. L. 103-322, §§ 320904 (2)(F), (G), 108 Stat.
2125, 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G).
In addition, despite the Court of Appeals' suggestion to the
contrary, see
2 F.3d
1342, 1365 (CA5 1993), there is no special need here for a
clear indication of Congress' rationale. The statute does not
interfere with the exercise of state or local authority. Cf.,
e.
g., Dellmuth v.
Muth, 491 U. S. 223, 227-228
(1989) (requiring clear statement for abrogation of Eleventh
Amendment immunity). Moreover, any clear statement rule would apply
only to determine Congress' intended result,
not to clarify
the source of its authority or measure the level of consideration
that went into its decision, and here there is no doubt as to which
activities Congress intended to regulate. See
ibid.; id., at
233 (SCALIA, J., concurring) (to subject States to suits for money
damages, Congress need only make that intent clear, and need not
refer explicitly to the Eleventh Amendment);
EEOC v.
Wyoming, 460
U. S. 226, 243, n. 18 (1983) (Congress need not recite the
constitutional provision that authorizes its action).
II
Applying these principles to the case at hand, we must ask
whether Congress could have had a
rational basis for finding
a significant (or substantial) connection between gun-related
school violence and interstate commerce. Or, to put the question in
the language of the
explicit finding that Congress made when
it amended this law in 1994: Could Congress rationally have found
that "violent crime in school zones," through its effect on the
"quality of education," significantly (or substantially) affects
"interstate" or "foreign commerce"? 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F),
(G). As long as one views the commerce connection, not as a
"technical legal conception," but as "a practical one,"
Swift &
Co. v.
United States, 196
619
u. S. 375, 398 (1905) (Holmes, J.), the answer to this question
must be yes. Numerous reports and studies-generated both inside and
outside government-make clear that Congress could reasonably have
found the empirical connection that its law, implicitly or
explicitly, asserts. (See Appendix,
infra, at 631, for a
sample of the documentation, as well as for complete citations to
the sources referenced below.)
For one thing, reports, hearings, and other readily available
literature make clear that the problem of guns in and around
schools is widespread and extremely serious. These materials
report, for example, that four percent of American high school
students (and six percent of inner-city high school students) carry
a gun to school at least occasionally, Centers for Disease Control
2342; Sheley, McGee, & Wright 679; that 12 percent of urban
high school students have had guns fired at them,
ibid.;
that 20 percent of those students have been threatened with guns,
ibid.; and that, in any 6month period, several hundred
thousand schoolchildren are victims of violent crimes in or near
their schools, U. S. Dept. of Justice 1 (1989); House Select
Committee Hearing 15 (1989). And, they report that this widespread
violence in schools throughout the Nation significantly interferes
with the quality of education in those schools. See,
e.
g., House Judiciary Committee Hearing 44 (1990) (linking
school violence to dropout rate); U. S. Dept. of Health 118-119
(1978) (school-violence victims suffer academically); compare U. S.
Dept. of Justice 1 (1991) (gun violence worst in inner-city
schools), with National Center 47 (dropout rates highest in inner
cities). Based on reports such as these, Congress obviously could
have thought that guns and learning are mutually exclusive. Senate
Labor and Human Resources Committee Hearing 39 (1993); U. S. Dept.
of Health 118, 123-124 (1978). Congress could therefore have found
a substantial educational problem-teachers unable to teach,
students unable to learn-and concluded that guns near schools
contribute substantially to the size and scope of that problem.
620
Having found that guns in schools significantly undermine the
quality of education in our Nation's classrooms, Congress could
also have found, given the effect of education upon interstate and
foreign commerce, that gun-related violence in and around schools
is a commercial, as well as a human, problem. Education, although
far more than a matter of economics, has long been inextricably
intertwined with the Nation's economy. When this Nation began, most
workers received their education in the workplace, typically (like
Benjamin Franklin) as apprentices. See generally Seybolt;
Rorabaugh; U. S. Dept. of Labor (1950). As late as the 1920's, many
workers still received general education directly from their
employers-from large corporations, such as General Electric, Ford,
and Goodyear, which created schools within their firms to help both
the worker and the firm. See Bolino 15-25. (Throughout most of the
19th century fewer than one percent of all Americans received
secondary education through attending a high school. See
id., at 11.) As public school enrollment grew in the early
20th century, see Becker 218 (1993), the need for industry to teach
basic educational skills diminished. But, the direct economic link
between basic education and industrial productivity remained.
Scholars estimate that nearly a quarter of America's economic
growth in the early years of this century is traceable directly to
increased schooling, see Denison 243; that investment in "human
capital" (through spending on education) exceeded investment in
"physical capital" by a ratio of almost two to one, see Schultz 26
(1961); and that the economic returns to this investment in
education exceeded the returns to conventional capital investment,
see,
e. g., Davis & Morrall 48-49.
In recent years the link between secondary education and
business has strengthened, becoming both more direct and more
important. Scholars on the subject report that technological
changes and innovations in management techniques have altered the
nature of the workplace so that more jobs now demand greater
educational skills. See,
e. g., MIT 32
621
(only about one-third of handtool company's 1,000 workers were
qualified to work with a new process that requires
high-school-level reading and mathematical skills); Cyert &
Mowery 68 (gap between wages of high school dropouts and better
trained workers increasing); U. S. Dept. of Labor 41 (1981) (job
openings for dropouts declining over time). There is evidence that
"service, manufacturing or construction jobs are being displaced by
technology that requires a better-educated worker or, more likely,
are being exported overseas," Gordon, Ponticell, & Morgan 26;
that "workers with truly few skills by the year 2000 will find that
only one job out of ten will remain,"
ibid.; and that
"[o]ver the long haul the best way to encourage the growth of
high-wage jobs is to upgrade the skills of the work force ....
[B]etter-trained workers become more productive workers, enabling a
company to become more competitive and expand." Henkoff 60.
Increasing global competition also has made primary and
secondary education economically more important. The portion of the
American economy attributable to international trade nearly tripled
between 1950 and 1980, and more than 70 percent of American-made
goods now compete with imports. Marshall 205; Marshall & Tucker
33. Yet, lagging worker productivity has contributed to negative
trade balances and to real hourly compensation that has fallen
below wages in 10 other industrialized nations. See National Center
57; Handbook of Labor Statistics 561, 576 (1989); Neef & Kask
28, 31. At least some significant part of this serious productivity
problem is attributable to students who emerge from classrooms
without the reading or mathematical skills necessary to compete
with their European or Asian counterparts, see,
e.
g., MIT 28, and, presumably, to high school dropout rates of
20 to 25 percent (up to 50 percent in inner cities), see,
e.
g., National Center 47; Chubb & Hanushek 215. Indeed,
Congress has said, when writing other statutes, that
622
"functionally or technologically illiterate" Americans in the
work force "erod[e]" our economic "standing in the international
marketplace," Pub. L. 100-418, § 6002(a)(3), 102 Stat. 1469, and
that "[o]ur Nation is ... paying the price of scientific and
technological illiteracy, with our productivity declining, our
industrial base ailing, and our global competitiveness dwindling,"
H. R. Rep. No. 98-6, pt. 1, p. 19 (1983).
Finally, there is evidence that, today more than ever, many
firms base their location decisions upon the presence, or absence,
of a work force with a basic education. See MacCormack, Newman,
& Rosenfield 73; Coffee 296. Scholars on the subject report,
for example, that today, "[h]igh speed communication and
transportation make it possible to produce most products and
services anywhere in the world," National Center 38; that "[m]odern
machinery and production methods can therefore be combined with low
wage workers to drive costs down,"
ibid.; that managers can
perform "'back office functions anywhere in the world now,'" and
say that if they" 'can't get enough skilled workers here' " they
will "'move the skilled jobs out of the country,'"
id., at
41; with the consequence that "rich countries need better education
and retraining, to reduce the supply of unskilled workers and to
equip them with the skills they require for tomorrow's jobs,"
Survey of Global Economy 37. In light of this increased importance
of education to individual firms, it is no surprise that half of
the Nation's manufacturers have become involved with setting
standards and shaping curricula for local schools, Maturi 65-68,
that 88 percent think this kind of involvement is important,
id., at 68, that more than 20 States have recently passed
educational reforms to attract new business, Overman 61-62, and
that business magazines have begun to rank cities according to the
quality of their schools, see Boyle 24.
The economic links I have just sketched seem fairly obvious. Why
then is it not equally obvious, in light of those links, that a
widespread, serious, and substantial physical
623
threat to teaching and learning
also substantially
threatens the commerce to which that teaching and learning is
inextricably tied? That is to say, guns in the hands of six percent
of inner-city high school students and gun-related violence
throughout a city's schools must threaten the trade and commerce
that those schools support. The only question, then, is whether the
latter threat is (to use the majority's terminology) "substantial."
The evidence of (1) the
extent of the gun-related violence
problem, see
supra, at 619, (2) the
extent of the
resulting negative effect on classroom learning, see
ibid.,
and (3) the
extent of the consequent negative commercial
effects, see
supra, at 620-622, when taken together,
indicate a threat to trade and commerce that is "substantial." At
the very least, Congress could rationally have concluded that the
links are "substantial."
Specifically, Congress could have found that gun-related
violence near the classroom poses a serious economic threat (1) to
consequently inadequately educated workers who must endure low
paying jobs, see,
e. g., National Center 29, and (2)
to communities and businesses that might (in today's "information
society") otherwise gain, from a well-educated work force, an
important commercial advantage, see,
e. g., Becker 10
(1992), of a kind that location near a railhead or harbor provided
in the past. Congress might also have found these threats to be no
different in kind from other threats that this Court has found
within the commerce power, such as the threat that loan sharking
poses to the "funds" of "numerous localities,"
Perez v.
United States, 402 U. S., at 157, and that unfair labor
practices pose to instrumentalities of commerce, see
Consolidated Edison Co. v.
NLRB, 305 U. S. 197,221-222
(1938). As I have pointed out,
supra, at 618, Congress has
written that "the occurrence of violent crime in school zones" has
brought about a "decline in the quality of education" that "has an
adverse impact on interstate commerce and the foreign commerce of
the United States." 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G). The
violence-related facts, the educa-
624
tional facts, and the economic facts, taken together, make this
conclusion rational. And, because under our case law, see
supra, at 615-617;
infra, at 627-628, the sufficiency
of the constitutionally necessary Commerce Clause link between a
crime of violence and interstate commerce turns simply upon size or
degree, those same facts make the statute constitutional.
To hold this statute constitutional is not to "obliterate" the
"distinction between what is national and what is local,"
ante, at 567 (citation omitted; internal quotation marks
omitted); nor is it to hold that the Commerce Clause permits the
Federal Government to "regulate any activity that it found was
related to the economic productivity of individual citizens," to
regulate "marriage, divorce, and child custody," or to regulate any
and all aspects of education.
Ante, at 564. First, this
statute is aimed at curbing a particularly acute threat to the
educational process-the possession (and use) of life-threatening
firearms in, or near, the classroom. The empirical evidence that I
have discussed above unmistakably documents the special way in
which guns and education are incompatible. See
supra, at
619. This Court has previously recognized the singularly disruptive
potential on interstate commerce that acts of violence may have.
See
Perez, supra, at 156-157. Second, the immediacy of the
connection between education and the national economic wellbeing is
documented by scholars and accepted by society at large in a way
and to a degree that may not hold true for other social
institutions. It must surely be the rare case, then, that a statute
strikes at conduct that (when considered in the abstract) seems so
removed from commerce, but which (practically speaking) has so
significant an impact upon commerce.
In sum, a holding that the particular statute before us falls
within the commerce power would not expand the scope of that
Clause. Rather, it simply would apply pre-existing law to changing
economic circumstances. See
Heart of Atlanta
625
Motel, Inc. v.
United States, 379 U. S. 241, 251
(1964). It would recognize that, in today's economic world,
gun-related violence near the classroom makes a significant
difference to our economic, as well as our social, well-being. In
accordance with well-accepted precedent, such a holding would
permit Congress "to act in terms of economic ... realities," would
interpret the commerce power as "an affirmative power commensurate
with the national needs," and would acknowledge that the "commerce
clause does not operate so as to render the nation powerless to
defend itself against economic forces that Congress decrees
inimical or destructive of the national economy."
North American
Co. v.
SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705 (1946)
(citing
Swift &
Co. v.
United States, 196
U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.)).
III
The majority's holding-that § 922 falls outside the scope of the
Commerce Clause-creates three serious legal problems. First, the
majority's holding runs contrary to modern Supreme Court cases that
have upheld congressional actions despite connections to interstate
or foreign commerce that are less significant than the effect of
school violence. In
Perez v.
United States, supra,
the Court held that the Commerce Clause authorized a federal
statute that makes it a crime to engage in loan sharking
("[e]xtortionate credit transactions") at a local level. The Court
said that Congress may judge that such transactions, "though purely
intrastate, ... affect interstate commerce." 402 U. S., at 154
(emphasis added). Presumably, Congress reasoned that threatening or
using force, say with a gun on a street corner, to collect a debt
occurs sufficiently often so that the activity (by helping
organized crime) affects commerce among the States. But, why then
cannot Congress also reason that the threat or use of force-the
frequent consequence of possessing a gun-in or near a school occurs
sufficiently often so that such activity (by inhibiting basic
education) affects
626
commerce among the States? The negative impact upon the national
economy of an inability to teach basic skills seems no smaller (nor
less significant) than that of organized crime.
In
Katzenbach v.
McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964),
this Court upheld, as within the commerce power, a statute
prohibiting racial discrimination at local restaurants, in part
because that discrimination discouraged travel by African Americans
and in part because that discrimination affected purchases of food
and restaurant supplies from other States. See
id., at
300; Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, at 274 (Black, J.,
concurring in
McClung and in
Heart of Atlanta). In
Daniel v.
Paul, 395 U. S. 298 (1969),
this Court found an effect on commerce caused by an amusement park
located several miles down a country road in the middle of
Alabama-because some customers (the Court assumed), some food, 15
paddleboats, and a juke box had come from out of state. See
id., at 304-305, 308. In both of these cases, the Court
understood that the specific instance of discrimination (at a local
place of accommodation) was part of a general practice that,
considered as a whole, caused not only the most serious human and
social harm, but had nationally significant economic dimensions as
well. See
McClung, supra, at 301;
Daniel, supra, at
307, n. 10. It is difficult to distinguish the case before us, for
the same critical elements are present. Businesses are less likely
to locate in communities where violence plagues the classroom.
Families will hesitate to move to neighborhoods where students
carry guns instead of books. (Congress expressly found in 1994 that
"parents may decline to send their children to school" in certain
areas "due to concern about violent crime and gun violence." 18 U.
S. C. § 922(q)(1)(E).) And (to look at the matter in the most
narrowly commercial manner), interstate publishers therefore will
sell fewer books and other firms will sell fewer school supplies
where the threat of violence disrupts learning. Most importantly,
like the local racial discrimination at issue in
McClung and
Daniel, the local instances here, taken
627
together and considered as a whole, create a problem that causes
serious human and social harm, but also has nationally significant
economic dimensions.
In
Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942),
this Court sustained the application of the Agricultural Adjustment
Act of 1938 to wheat that Filburn grew and consumed on his own
local farm because, considered in its totality, (1) homegrown wheat
may be "induced by rising prices" to "flow into the market and
check price increases," and (2) even if it never actually enters
the market, homegrown wheat nonetheless "supplies a need of the man
who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the
open market" and, in that sense, "competes with wheat in commerce."
Id., at 128. To find both of these effects on commerce
significant in amount, the Court had to give Congress the benefit
of the doubt. Why would the Court, to find a significant (or
"substantial") effect here, have to give Congress any greater
leeway? See also
United States v.
Women's Sportswear
Mfrs. Assn., 336
U. S. 460, 464 (1949) ("If it is interstate commerce that feels
the pinch, it does not matter how local the operation which applies
the squeeze");
Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v.
American
Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S., at 236 ("[I]t is enough that the
individual activity when multiplied into a general practice ...
contains a threat to the interstate economy that requires
preventive regulation").
The second legal problem the Court creates comes from its
apparent belief that it can reconcile its holding with earlier
cases by making a critical distinction between "commercial" and
noncommercial "transaction[s]."
Ante, at 561. That is to
say, the Court believes the Constitution would distinguish between
two local activities, each of which has an identical effect upon
interstate commerce, if one, but not the other, is "commercial" in
nature. As a general matter, this approach fails to heed this
Court's earlier warning not to turn "questions of the power of
Congress" upon "formula[s]" that would give
628
"controlling force to nomenclature such as 'production' and
'indirect' and foreclose consideration of the actual effects of the
activity in question upon interstate commerce." Wickard,
supra, at 120.
See also
United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S.100,
116-117 (1941) (overturning the Court's distinction between
"production" and "commerce" in the child labor case,
Hammer
v.
Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, 271-272
(1918));
Swift &
Co. v.
United States, 196
U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.) ("[C]ommerce among the States is not a
technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the
course of business"). Moreover, the majority's test is not
consistent with what the Court saw as the point of the cases that
the majority now characterizes. Although the majority today
attempts to categorize
Perez, McClung, and
Wickard as
involving intrastate "economic activity,"
ante, at 559, the
Courts that decided each of those cases did
not focus upon
the economic nature of the activity regulated. Rather, they focused
upon whether that activity
affected interstate or foreign
commerce. In fact, the
Wickard Court expressly held that
Filburn's consumption of homegrown wheat,
"though it may not be
regarded as commerce," could nevertheless be
regulated-"whatever its nature" -so long as "it exerts a
substantial economic effect on interstate commerce."
Wickard,
supra, at 125 (emphasis added).
More importantly, if a distinction between commercial and
noncommercial activities is to be made, this is not the case in
which to make it. The majority clearly cannot intend such a
distinction to focus narrowly on an act of gun possession standing
by itself, for such a reading could not be reconciled with either
the civil rights cases
(McClung and
Daniel) or
Perez-in each of those cases the specific transaction (the
race-based exclusion, the use of force) was not itself
"commercial." And, if the majority instead means to distinguish
generally among broad categories of activities, differentiating
what is educational from what is commercial, then, as a
629
practical matter, the line becomes almost impossible to draw.
Schools that teach reading, writing, mathematics, and related basic
skills serve
both social and commercial purposes, and one
cannot easily separate the one from the other. American industry
itself has been, and is again, involved in teaching. See
supra, at 620, 622. When, and to what extent, does its
involvement make education commercial? Does the number of
vocational classes that train students directly for jobs make a
difference? Does it matter if the school is public or private,
nonprofit or profit seeking? Does it matter if a city or State
adopts a voucher plan that pays private firms to run a school? Even
if one were to ignore these practical questions, why should there
be a theoretical distinction between education, when it
significantly benefits commerce, and environmental pollution, when
it causes economic harm? See
Hodel v.
Virginia Surface
Mining &
Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264 (1981).
Regardless, if there is a principled distinction that could work
both here and in future cases, Congress (even in the absence of
vocational classes, industry involvement, and private management)
could rationally conclude that schools fall on the commercial side
of the line. In 1990, the year Congress enacted the statute before
us, primary and secondary schools spent $230 billion-that is,
nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars-which accounts for a
significant portion of our $5.5 trillion gross domestic product for
that year. See Statistical Abstract 147, 442 (1993). The business
of schooling requires expenditure of these funds on student
transportation, food and custodial services, books, and teachers'
salaries. See U. S. Dept. of Education 4, 7 (1993). These
expenditures enable schools to provide a valuable servicenamely, to
equip students with the skills they need to survive in life and,
more specifically, in the workplace. Certainly, Congress has often
analyzed school expenditure as if it were a commercial investment,
closely analyzing whether schools are efficient, whether they
justify the significant resources
630
they spend, and whether they can be restructured to achieve
greater returns. See,
e. g., S. Rep. No. 100-222, p.
2 (1987) (federal school assistance is "a prudent investment");
Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing (1994) (private sector
management of public schools); cf. Chubb & Moe 185-229 (school
choice); Hanushek 85-122 (performance based incentives for
educators); Gibbs (decision in Hartford, Conn., to contract out
public school system). Why could Congress, for Commerce Clause
purposes, not consider schools as roughly analogous to commercial
investments from which the Nation derives the benefit of an
educated work force?
The third legal problem created by the Court's holding is that
it threatens legal uncertainty in an area of law that, until this
case, seemed reasonably well settled. Congress has enacted many
statutes (more than 100 sections of the United States Code),
including criminal statutes (at least 25 sections), that use the
words "affecting commerce" to define their scope, see,
e.
g., 18 U. S. C. § 844(i) (destruction of buildings used in
activity affecting interstate commerce), and other statutes that
contain no jurisdictional language at all, see,
e.
g., 18 U. S. C. §
922(0)(1) (possession of
machineguns). Do these, or similar, statutes regulate noncommercial
activities? If so, would that alter the meaning of "affecting
commerce" in a jurisdictional element? Cf.
United States v.
Staszcuk, 517 F.2d
53, 57-58 (CA7 1975) (en banc) (Stevens, J.) (evaluation of
Congress' intent "requires more than a consideration of the
consequences of the particular transaction"). More importantly, in
the absence of a jurisdictional element, are the courts
nevertheless to take
Wickard, 317 U. S., at 127-128, (and
later similar cases) as inapplicable, and to judge the effect of a
single noncommercial activity on interstate commerce without
considering similar instances of the forbidden conduct? However
these questions are eventually resolved, the legal uncertainty now
created will restrict Congress' ability to enact criminal laws
aimed at criminal behavior that, considered problem by problem
rather
631
than instance by instance, seriously threatens the economic, as
well as social, well-being of Americans.
IV
In sum, to find this legislation within the scope of the
Commerce Clause would permit "Congress ... to act in terms of
economic ... realities."
North American Co. v.
SEC,
327 U. S., at 705 (citing
Swift &
Co. v.
United States, 196 U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.)). It would
interpret the Clause as this Court has traditionally interpreted
it, with the exception of one wrong turn subsequently corrected.
See
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 195 (holding that
the commerce power extends "to all the external concerns of the
nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States
generally");
United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S., at
116-117 ("The conclusion is inescapable that
Hammer v.
Dagenhart [the child labor case] was a departure from the
principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of the
Commerce Clause both before and since the decision .... It should
be and now is overruled"). Upholding this legislation would do no
more than simply recognize that Congress had a "rational basis" for
finding a significant connection between guns in or near schools
and (through their effect on education) the interstate and foreign
commerce they threaten. For these reasons, I would reverse the
judgment of the Court of Appeals. Respectfully, I dissent.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF BREYER, J.
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632
Appendix to opinion of BREYER, J.
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633
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634
Appendix to opinion of BREYER, J.
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635
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636
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