[publiusF27]

Why do you think the courts in those cases were distinguishing the tax from a penalty? I am not asking for what their reasons were not, in your view, I'm asking for your view on what they were. The distinction seems important somehow, being mentioned in a couple of prominent cases. How is it important? I can't believe we're even talking about the taxing power when the fight will be about the commerce power, but it's entertaining as always.

[Mojave]

Why do you think the courts in those cases were distinguishing the tax from a penalty?

In the Sonzinsky decision, because the case before them involved the regulation of firearms, which at that time had not yet been usurped by the federal courts and which was still understood to be, as the court stated, "reserved to the states." Although that basic Constitutional principle has since been destroyed by a judicial expansion of the "substantive due process" doctrine, the now obviated distinction has no applicability to our discussion here, honored or not.

Think there's any chance at all of discussing the laws actually before us?