[tacticalogic]

I think any law passed by Congress should include which of those 18 enumerated powers they think the law is applicable to. That would make a lot of legislation dead in the water from the get go.

I believe there is already such a law, that went into effect under Reagan. the problem is that the "substantially effects" doctrine of the Commerce Clause is so open-ended and subjective that there doesn't seem to be anything they can't "find to have a "substantial effect on interstate commerce".

"The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments."

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
2:§§ 1073--91

[Congressman Billybob]

Thank you. Excellent quote from Justice Story, who was also at the same time a Professor of Law at Harvard. (Harvard was not always an enemy of the American theory of limited government and checks and balances.)

John / Billybob

[allmendream]

I think just as “promote the general welfare” doesn't constitute a blank check of legislative power, neither does the commerce clause. The only limit I have seen the SCOTUS enforce on the commerce clause in recent memory was that a federal ban on guns within a certain distance of a school did not constitute a power of Congress under the commerce clause. That someone thought it did just goes to show how out of bounds Congress has taken things under the rubric of the commerce clause.