The federal government is clearly given the power to regulate interstate commerce. The filing of paperwork in regards to an interstate mortgage transaction is clearly an act of interstate commerce.
So this does not “expand federal powers”. And there is no hard-and-fast rule that says “laws are against the conservative cause”. It could well be a conservative cause to protect the rights of a business to efficiently do their paperwork within the state they are headquartered, rather than a state forcing them to send people to the state to do the paperwork.
“The filing of paperwork in regards to an interstate mortgage transaction is clearly an act of interstate commerce.”
But is it an interstate mortgage transaction? Seems to me a state should have the ability to determine what its notary laws are.
True, but not define it.
The commerce clause was intended to allow the federal government to determine which ports in the states were to receive foreign goods so that everyone got an equal share of the 'income' from taxes.
It could also be used as a tool of punishment. Any state in no compliance would have foreign traffic directed away from their ports, and force them to lose revenue.
It was never intended to operate on the sovereign soil of the States.
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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. When duties are laid, not for purposes of revenue, but of retaliation and restriction, to countervail foreign restrictions, they are strictly within the scope of the power, as a regulation of commerce. But when laid to encourage manufactures, they have nothing to do with it. The power to regulate manufactures is no more confided to congress, than the power to interfere with the systems of education, the poor laws, or the road laws of the states. It is notorious, that, in the convention, an attempt was made to introduce into the constitution a power to encourage manufactures; but it was withheld. Instead of granting the power to congress, permission was given to the states to impose duties, with the consent of that body, to encourage their own manufactures; and thus, in the true spirit of justice, imposing the burthen on those, who were to be benefited.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
The federal government has no legitimate authority to 'regulate' the banking system.