[mrreaganaut]

The commerce clause is part of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). “You can’t force people to buy something” only lasts until a federal judge finds that not buying insurance is an action that in the aggregate affects interstate commerce. This finding stands unless the judge is found by a higher court to have abused his discretion in making the finding. In its form, the commerce finding would be one of fact, to which higher courts normally defer.

The 10th Amendment is still part of the Constitution, though it has been generally neutered by commerce clause cases. The bright spot is that current Court members do remember the 10th, and have struck down laws as stretching the commerce clause too far.

[Parley Baer]

Thank You for the update.

[reaganaut]

how about in English for the rest of us. LOL.

[Jeff Winston]

The decision in Wickard v. Filburn started with Congress' legitimate, Constitutionally-delegated power to regulate international and interstate commerce, and stretched that to say that Congress had the authority to regulate any activity, whether it comprised interstate commerce or not, that had a "substantial effect upon" interstate commerce.

But this is simply wrong, and probably disastrously so. A federal government that can regulate a farmer growing wheat on his own land to feed to his own chickens has been given power that is virtually unlimited. The writers of the Constitution in no way intended to create a federal government with the power to regulate a farmer's growing of wheat to feed to his chickens. That's just ludicrous.