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Do you think there is any chance in hell that a court will ever undo some if not all of the commerce clause expansion described by Rehnquist in Lopez?

I don't think so, at least not in the near future. From what I've gathered, Thomas is the only Justice who seems genuinely interested in actually shrinking the expanded commerce clause. Rehnquist has been content to stop the expansion without actually turning anything back, and I don't think that Scalia has objected to that stance.

then why would [Scalia] not also seek to return such a regulatory power as weed-growing to the states?

Because the Bush administration is asking him not to. And that request carries a lot of weight, imo.

On the bright side, when it comes to predicting what the Court's going to do, I'm quite often way off base.

On the bright side, when it comes to predicting what the Court's going to do, I'm quite often way off base.

Well, I guess I'll have to hang my hopes on that, then. I've been poking around some of the old source documents on "general welfare". Folks have driven truckloads of laws through that hole, plus the "interstate commerce" clause.

So how will Ashcroft v. Raich come out? I don’t know. I got a sense that O’Connor, Ginsburg, and perhaps Stevens were quite sympathetic to the respondents. Based on his questions, Justice Kennedy seemed quite favorable to the government. One would guess that Justice Thomas will be the hardest member of the Court for the government to win. One might also guess that it will be hard for the petititoners to win Souter or Bryer, who both are very skeptical of Lopez and Morrison. Justice Rehnquist is hard to call. We didn’t hear from him. One suspects he is both pro-federalism/state power and pro-federal regulation of drugs. One can imagine this case coming out 5-4 either way. Before argument, I would have said it could be 9-0 either way, but if I allow myself the dangerous pleasure of reading the tea leaves, I now think that is unlikely.

He left out Scalia. Interesting blow by blow account. Wow. That was cool. I can't ever tell what is going to happen based on the oral arguments.