Commerce Clause Research 5-5-2015 #10

 [9-7-2025: I am going through my prison journal, but this is not part of that journal. The federal government provided us with a free law library - LexisNexis, to be precise - and there came a time I decided to research the law that got me into prison, the Constitution's Commerce Clause. In law school, they teach us the law as it is, for that is what we must deal with for our clients. I took a slightly different approach, what I call a genealogical approach. Long ago, but after law school, I learned there is often a drift in judicial interpretations. This drift was not part of my education. That it happens is not as much a concern as where the law is at the time one has a case; the main stream of interpretation and any anomalies. My public defender had given me Gonzales v. Raich to read while in was in pretrial detention in 2010; four years later, I decided to find the sources of that case. My conclusion to all this research (and there will be a lot of this to post) is that the United Supreme Court has expanded and extended the Commerce Clause into a national police power that is not curbed by any constitutional provision, only by the political will of Congress, and can bring the power of the federal government into the most minute aspect of American lives. I thought that terrifying in 2014; today it poses a horrendous threat.

I will note that this present post may well be the rawest version of the notes. However, time and the mailing around and the shifts in their storage will make these posts messy. That and their apparent irrelevance to the lives of most people will probably drive most of you away from reading them. I ask for your patience, for they are relevant to your lives, since your lives are tangled in the jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause. 

While typing the previous section, I ran across the date of 6/1/12, so these notes may be even older, but I see no other dates and so will leave the title unchanged. The following paragraphs begin with the page number of 49. As I said, the originals are in a messy condition.

Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (1917) is the most important Commerce Clause case I never heard mentioned in law school, and is the key to modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

I will finish this part as I always preface my prison journal entries: What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars.

sch.]

Heart of Atlanta Motel appears in two cases where it is not used to bring in the quote from Caminetti. United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966) refers to Heart of Atlanta Motel as supporting Congressional power to legislate civil rights protections for those traveling in interstate commerce. 383 U.S. at 759. However, "channels of interstate commerce" only appears in Justice Harlan's separate opinion, and which brings in United States v. Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895).

The case of In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, may be thought to raise some doubts as to this proposition. There, the United States sought to enjoin Debs and members of his union from continuing to obstruct -- by means of a strike -- interstate commerce and the passage of the mails. The Court held that Congress and the Executive could certainly act to keep the channels of interstate commerce open, and that a court of equity had no less power to enjoin what amounted to a public nuisance....

383 U.S. at 768 

Heart of Atlanta also appears in Daniel v. Paul, 395 U.S. 298 (1969) as follows, respectively, in footnote 5 and in Justice's concurrence:

In my opinion in Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 379 U. S. 268, which also applies to Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, concurring in the Court's decision upholding the application of this Act to an Atlanta, Georgia, motel and a Birmingham, Alabama, restaurant, I said:

"I recognize that every remote, possible, speculative effect on commerce should not be accepted as an adequate constitutional ground to uproot and throw into the discard all our traditional distinctions between what is purely local, and therefore controlled by state laws, and what affects the national interest and is therefore subject to control by federal laws. I recognize too that some isolated and remote lunchroom which sells only to local people and buys almost all its supplies in the locality may possibly be beyond the reach of the power of Congress to regulate commerce, just as such an establishment is not covered by the present Act."

***

While I join the opinion of the Court, I also rest on the Fourteenth Amendment. My views were set forth in Bell v. Maryland, 378 U. S. 226, 378 U. S. 242, where I said:

"Segregation of Negroes in the restaurants and lunch counters of parts of America is a relic of slavery. It is a badge of second-class citizenship.

It is a denial of a privilege and immunity of national citizenship and of the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgment by the States."

Id. 378 U. S. 260. And see my concurring opinion in Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 379 U. S. 279 et seq. 

395 U. S. 308 - 09

While "channels of interstate commerce" arrives through a quote from the Congressional Record:

"These principles are applicable not merely to motion picture theaters, but to other establishments which receive supplies, equipment, or goods through the channels of interstate commerce. If these establishments narrow their potential markets by artificially restricting their patrons to non-Negroes, the volume of sales and, therefore, the volume of interstate purchases, will be less."

(Emphasis added.) 110 Cong.Rec. 7402 (1964).

Footnote 10 

 sch

[Continued in Commerce Clause Research 5-5-2015 #11. sch 9/7/2025.]