Commerce Clause Research 5-5-2015 #5

[9-1-2025: 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.]

While Supreme Court opinions show no radical changes in their using "channels of interstate commerce", the metaphor appears in new federal statutes. 

The Grain Standards Act appears in Shafer v. Farmers Grain Co. (1925) to trump an analogous but conflicting state statute. United States v. Sheridan (1946) section 3 of the National Stolen Property Act (18 U.S.C §2314). The following interpreted the Agricultural Marketing Act: United States v. Rock Royal Co-Operative, 307 U.S. 533 (1939); United States v. Borden, 308 U.S. 188 (1939); and H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525 (1949). Thus, beings the New Deal Era. United States v. Alpers, 338 U.S. 680 (1950) interpreted what is now known as 18 U.S.C. §1462 (transportation of obscene matters).

There were also interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act cases: Labor Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U.S. 601 (1939), and Labor Board v. Bradford Dyeing Assn., 310 U.S. 318 (1940).

However, the federal statute occurring most often in these "channels of interstate commerce" cases between Caminetti and Heart of Atlanta Motel was the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). These FLSA cases are: Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co. 317 U.S. 564 (1943); Overstreet v. North Shore Corp, 318 U.S. 125 (1943); McLeod v. Threlkeld, 319 U.S. 491 (1943); Western Union Telegraph Co v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490 (1945); Roland Electric v. Walling, 326 U.S. 657 (1946); Alstate Construction v. Durkin, 345 U.S. 13 (1953); and Mitchell v. Zachry, 362 U.S. 310 (1960).

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Food and Drug Act reappear.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act as utilized in Paine Lumber Co., Ltd. v. Neal, 244 U.S. 459 (1917) returns in United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U.S. 417 (1920), American Column & Lumber Co. v. United States, 257 U.S. 377 (1921), Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443 (1921), United States v. American Linseed Oil Co., 262 U.S. 371 (1923), Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Stone Cutters' Assn., 274 U.S. 37 (1927), and Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U.S. 436 (1940). [A comment in my notes about "a more straightforward application of the Sherman Anti-Trust" is obscure as to which case it refers. sch 9/1/2025.]

The Food and Drug act cases are: Corn Products Refining Co. v. Eddy, 249 U.S. 427 (1919);and 62 Cases of Jam v. United States, 340 U.S. 593 (1951).

 Danciger v. Cooley, 248 U.S. 319 (1919) and United States v. Hill, 248 U.S. 420 (1919) interpreted the Wilson Act.

Only three cases of pure state action appear between Caminetti and Heart of Atlanta Motel: Oliver Iron Mining Co. v. Lord, 262 U.S. 172 (1923); Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, 286 U.S. 165 (1932); and Eli Lilly & Co. v. Sav-on-Drugs, Inc., 366 U.S. 276 (1961).

[Continued in Commerce Clause Research 5-5-2015 #6. sch 9/1/2025.]