The Most Important Supreme Court Case You Never Heard Of

One Supreme Court case stands behind the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Controlled Substances Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Civil Rights Act. It's been cited in rulings involving hot-button issues such as health care reform and medical marijuana. But chances are you've never heard of it.

Despite its wide-reaching influence, hardly anyone outside of legal circles is aware of the 1942 case, Wickard v. Filburn. One man, Gary Marbut of Missoula, Mont., hopes to change that. If Marbut succeeds, we'll also hear about another Supreme Court case: the one that overturns Wickard.

... snip ... The case was not about criminal rights, free speech or racial equality; it was about wheat.

In 1941, Roscoe Filburn planted 23 acres of wheat, despite regulations at the time that limited farmers to 11.1 acres of the crop. The regulations, established under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, were intended to support crop prices during the Great Depression. Congress's power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes" justified the Act.

The Supreme Court disagreed. The court explained that, while Filburn's activities were not themselves commercial, in the aggregate, similar activities would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, since they would allow farmers to avoid purchasing wheat, possibly wheat from other states. Therefore, the court said, such activities needed to be subject to regulation for Congress to fully exercise its power over interstate commerce. Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote for the court, "Even if appellee's activity be local, and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce."

Another case few living ever heard of - case grants Treaty Tribes superior Rights over all other US citizens

Indians are indeed different for cultural and historic reasons. From the very beginning of our country we legally treated them (in theory at least) as separate from us and sovereign for their own purposes. They weren’t counted in the census and agreements with them are treaties—treaties like with foreign nations. Might be obsolete today, but that is how it is and always has been. It is why treaty tribes can set up casinos on their property and I can’t.

My dad was in the finance business years ago in Arizona and told me that no one would give a car loan to an Indian who lived on a reservation. Reason being that once he got the car back to the reservation, it could not be repossessed using state law, it now came under tribal law. I have no idea if that is the case today, but it was in the 60s.

I do believe that many legal Constitutional scholars and Constitutional lawyers would find your view antithetical to the meaning and intent of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

You have no idea of the destruction that was wrought on people, families and commercial fishermen - many paid with their lives so others could sit home and pontificate. We fought for our Rights, or what we thought were our Rights in the plain meaning of the Constitution, only to be told by SCOTUS that ‘only Treaty Tribes have Rights enshrined in the Constitution, all others have mere privileges which can be revoked at any given time’ ... that ruling has been reaffirmed another two times I know about. In other words, the Second Amendment is a privilege not a Right - think about that when our guns are taken but not from Treaty Tribes - someone just needs to bring the ‘right’ case ...

You do under stand the meaning of Superior Rights? Treaty Tribes are defacto our Masters, much as that may seem contrary to popular thought and the squalor found on reservations (which in many instances is deliberate).

This happened long before there was an internet. At the time there were only the ABCNBCCBS networks to carry the “truth” of the situation. All coverage as it was taking place was touted as “fair and balanced to both sides”. But when broadcast, only the Tribe’s side made the show. The networks carried the “truth” about the Civil War (yes it was - including shootings, fire bombings and so on - reporters covering those incidents had their stories spiked and round filed) which raged for almost 10 years. That “truth” mirrored the network’s “truth” about Nam - just so do you understand how insanely biased they were then (they haven’t changed much since).

The Treaty Tribes can do as they will because SCOTUS never heard our side. The State of Washington side was argued by Slate Gorton (later Senator) who introduced, at the outset of oral arguments, a completely different take on the situation which forced our lawyers to argue against it in their 15 minutes - our case was never presented.

The State of Washington argued as they did, hoping to get rid of non-Indian commercial fishermen so they could freely sell eyed salmon eggs worldwide (in direct contravention to State law - as they saw more revenue than the taxes we paid to maintain & enhance the fisheries. They also wanted to see us gone so they could literally create salmon specifically for the lucrative sports industry) which they succeeded in doing - thus pen-raised salmon (Silver/Coho, Chinook/King), thus the miniature Coho and King salmon sizes common today in the Puget Sound region.

This whole case originated in RM Nixon’s misguided attempt to find a solution to Alaskan Aboriginal law - he was warned that venue would result in a legal mess and it did.

I’ve heard the “car loan” justification for decades - and the reason it cannot be reposed (only in certain well defined cases) is WASHINGTON v. FISHING VESSEL ASSN., 443 U.S. 658 (1979) ...

your view antithetical to the meaning and intent of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Perhaps you misunderstood my post. I am not saying that I think the ruling on Indian fishing rights was a good idea in keeping with the Constitution and the Declaration, but rather the history behind how such things came to be. Treating of Indians as sovereign, at least in their own affairs, predates both documents.

It does seem absurd that in the USA in the 21st century, that human A, who is an Indian, has rights that human B does not, but there it is. There is a cable show about life in Alaska, I think it is Life Below Zero. One family that is or at least was featured has a Caucasian who is married to an Inuit woman. She and their children can legally hunt seals, walruses—he cannot. They can gather fossil ivory—he cannot.

I don’t think that treaties can trump the Constitution but I believe they are considered ‘the supreme law of the land’. So if someone in 1850 signed a treaty on behalf of the US and ratified by the Senate with an Indian tribe saying that they could have all the fish they could catch, then no state law can trump that. After all they were catching all the fish they could catch long before we were here.

As for the car loan business—all I know is what my dad, who was in the business, told me when I was 16 years old.

Sometimes history can create situations that seem to contradict the Bill of Rights. I was once told that the reason that Customs can search your luggage without a warrant is that the practice predates the Constitution.

Anyway, I’m not saying such things are right or fair or good, but why such things happen.

Even in 1787 people understood that local economic activities invariably and indirectly could effect global economic activities.

Adam Smith’s book ‘the Wealth of nations’(1776) perhaps the definitive book on economics for most of the 19th and late 18th century. Made it quite clear that all economics were interconnected.

The point is just because something happens does not mean it is commerce nor that it is intrastate. Indeed the word ‘regulate’ itself didn’t mean to give congress anything other than the power to abolish trade barriers the stated justification for which it was created(Informed by abusive trade access practices by some State’s in the 1780’s towards others). Even the word to ‘regulate’ was to ‘make regular’ not to control.

No clause of any document makes any sense if you expand it to include all possible implications that might be effected no matter how indirect. So your either talking in its most limited sense or you might as well not be reading at all. One could after all claim the power to make war also includes the power to control speech, and minor trade activities as they too could indirectly lead to or even constitute an act of war.

This was one of the worse court edicts in American history made for purely political expediencies. That said the author is wrong, reversing it is not likely to reverse any of its consequences of edict. The Federal ‘court’ is in in practice already a political legislative body in so much that it has demonstrated the power to rewrite the law on a case by case basis. Precedent only matters in so much that it provides them with the paper to write new laws with the promus that subsequent cases be decided by them and their underlings the same way. A proms they regularly break with new edicts.

The problem started when the other 2 branches and levels of government started acting as their agents enforcing such edicts rather than as checks and balances upon the abuses of such power.

Thus even the partial overturning of that precedent in United States v. Lopez is inconsequential.
The court is even more autocratic and lawless today than it was in 1944.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.