"Sorry, but Scalia took the Necessary and Proper clause to new levels in his concurrence."
You're the only one I've heard say that.
"IMO ignoring stare decesis in ruling against previous decisions that were activism (and therefore ignored stare decesis in their time), is not activism, but a return to original intent - it is a corrective action to scale back usupred federal powers."
I agree with that completely. However, I'm not willing to judge Scalia based on this one decision. In addition, there is more urgency in the matter of reversing Roe than in reining in the commerce clause.
You're the only one I've heard say that.
The Ninth Circuit’s Revenge In Gonzales v. Raich, the circuit court won big.
"What about Justice Scalia? He did not join the majority opinion, resting his decision on the Necessary and Proper Clause, which he had previously described in Printz v. U.S. as "the last, best hope of those who defend ultra vires congressional action." In his concurring opinion in Raich, Justice Scalia appears to put his commitment to majoritarianism over his commitment to originalism. Yet this decision does run counter to his oft-expressed insistence that the people should act to protect their un-enumerated rights in state political processes rather than in federal court. Here this is exactly what the citizens of California and ten other states have done, but Justice Scalia's new stance on the Necessary and Proper Clause leaves citizens little, if any, room to protect their liberty from federal encroachment in the future. It has always seemed significant that he never joined Justice Thomas's originalist concurrences in Lopez and Morrison. Nor does he explain why Justice Thomas's originalist dissent in Raich is historically inaccurate, which would be incumbent on him as an "originalist justice" to do. Instead, Justice Scalia now joins in expanding the reach of the Commerce Clause power beyond even that which the Court had endorsed in Wickard v. Filburn. In oral argument he admitted, "I always used to laugh at Wickard." Now it's Judge Stephen Reinhardt and the Ninth Circuit's turn to laugh.