[tacticalogic]

As for the part about “carriers” such as railroads, you have it backwards. Gibbons was decided in the 1820s when hydrocommerce (if that’s a word) was king. The principle that the feds can meddle with railroads whenever and wherever they want, even on lines that don’t cross borders, came later and was inspired by Gibbons.

Are you talking about Shreveport?

[Tublecane]

I wasn’t specifically thinking about the Shreveport Rate Case. There are plenty enough instances of the feds lording it over the railroads for me to bypass specific instances. And in Houston E & WT Railroad Co. I think they might have relied on the necessary and proper clause (as in controlling intrastate rates was necessary to prevent the bogey of “predatory pricing “ on the interstate level). Perhaps without Gibbons they never would have dared use necessary and proper in that manner. We’ll never know.