[tacticalogic]

In the case of Wickard, it appears that horse left the barn long ago. It’s the basis of federal claims of authority over anything Congress can “find” to have “a substantial effect on interstate commerce”.

[Oceander]

No, it's not. For a clear example of that, take a look at how the so-called "Income Tax Cases" were distinguished almost to irrelevance during the 18 years or so from the time those cases were decided until the time the 16th Amendment was ratified - time and again, the Supreme Court found one reason or another why a whole slew of different taxes weren't the sort of direct tax that the Income Tax Cases had forbidden, even when they more or less were.

More broadly, however, no broad federal power long exercised stands or falls on a single case. Wickard may have represented the nadir (if you will) of respect for constitutional limitations (to-date) on the Commerce Clause, but that doesn't mean that all contemporary understandings of the breadth of the Commerce Clause power stand or fall on Wickard. For example, assuming Wickard were repudiated on its facts by the Supreme Court, all of the jurisprudence regarding the instrumentalities and channels of interstate commerce - such as OTR trucking on the highways of the various states - still stands. For some faint allusions to this, see United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).

I am not saying that there are favorable odds on Wickard being overturned, or even substantially repudiated; however, I am saying that it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Do not forget that, until 1954, it seemed highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would ever repudiate the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), and the doctrine of "Separate but Equal" based on that case, until it did exactly that in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).