Modern transportation and communications make a restrictive view of the Commerce Clause difficult to justify or apply in a reliable manner. Indeed, few economists today would disagree with the Court's reasoning in its unanimous opinion in
Wickard that permitting wheat to be freely grown and processed into grain for animal feed for use on farms where it is grown would have no effect on the production and price of wheat placed into interstate commerce. And it should not be overlooked that the farmers in
Wickard were free to grow wheat and use it as animal fodder so long as they did not separate the mature wheat heads and process them into grain as is used in commerce.
As for gay marriage, the Court's wretched Obergefell mandating gay marriage relied on the 14th Amendment, not the Commerce Clause.
few economists today would disagree with the Court's reasoning in its unanimous opinion in Wickard that permitting wheat to be freely grown and processed into grain for animal feed for use on farms where it is grown would have no effect on the production and price of wheat placed into interstate commerce. Economists are *not* judges, nor should there opinions be used to make judicial decisions.
Taken at face value, *everything* affects interstate commerce, which renders the commerce clause void of meaning, if anything affecting interstate commerce may be regulated by the federal government.
My statement about "gay marriage" was to show the absurdity of the idea that the federal government has the right to regulate everything.
As late as 1995, in Lopez, the Supreme Court ruled, that for the commerce clause to have meaning, there has to be a limit on the reach of federal regulation.
In 2005, they reversed that with the Raich decision, on home grown marijuna. It was not Justice Scalia's finest hour.