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United States v. Lopez (1995)
In 1990,
the U.S. Congress passed a major crime bill, which featured a section
called the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, forbidding "any
individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that [he] knows . .
. is a school zone," 18 U.S.C. 922(q)(1)(A). The act was passed amid
concerns about violence, particularly gun violence, in the nation's
schools.
When
considering whether a new law should be passed, Congress not only has to
consider whether the law is a good idea, but also whether the law is
constitutional. When we say that the law is constitutional, we mean not
only that the law itself is allowed by the U.S. Constitution, but also
that Congress has the power to pass that law.
Most
people certainly agreed that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was a
good idea. Guns in a school zone increase the likelihood that a young
person will be seriously hurt or even killed. However, soon after the
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was passed, there was a constitutional
challenge to this law. On March 10, 1992, a twelfth-grade
student named Lopez arrived at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas with a concealed
.38 caliber handgun and five bullets. After receiving an anonymous tip,
school authorities confronted Lopez, who admitted that he was carrying
the weapon. The next day, he was charged by federal prosecutors with
violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990.
Lopez
tried to get the case dismissed on the basis that the Gun-Free School
Zones Act of 1990 violated the U.S. Constitution because Congress did not
have the power under the Commerce Clause to pass such a law. The District
Court denied his motion, stating that the Act was a constitutional
exercise of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. Lopez was found
guilty in the District Court and was sentenced to six months'
imprisonment and two years of supervised release. The case was appealed
to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the District
Court's decision. The Court of Appeals held that the Gun-Free School
Zones Act of 1990 was beyond Congress' power to regulate interstate
commerce. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Excerpt From the
Decision
Jones
& Laughlin Steel [and other cases] ushered in an era of Commerce
Clause jurisprudence that greatly expanded the previously defined
authority of Congress under that Clause. In part, this was a recognition
of the great changes that had occurred in the way business was carried on
in this country. Enterprises that had once been local or at most regional
in nature had become national in scope. But the doctrinal change also
reflected a view that earlier Commerce Clause cases artificially had
constrained the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.
But even
these modern-era precedents which have expanded congressional power under
the Commerce Clause confirm that this power is subject to outer limits.
In Jones & Laughlin Steel, the Court warned that the scope of
the interstate commerce power "must be considered in the light of
our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace
effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace
them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the
distinction between what is national and what is local and create a
completely centralized government."
. . .
[W]e have identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may
regulate under its commerce power. . . . First, Congress may regulate the
use of the channels of interstate commerce. . . . Second, Congress is
empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate
commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the
threat may come only from intrastate activities. . . . Finally, Congress'
commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having
a substantial relation to interstate commerce. . . . i.e., those
activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. . . .
We now
turn to consider the power of Congress, in the light of this framework,
to enact [the Gun-Free School Zones Act]. The first two categories of
authority may be quickly disposed of. . . . Thus, if [the Act] is to be
sustained, it must be under the third category as a regulation of an
activity that substantially affects interstate commerce.
The
Government's essential contention, in fine, is that we may
determine here that [the Act] is valid because possession of a firearm in
a local school zone does indeed substantially affect interstate commerce.
. . . The Government argues that possession of a firearm in a school zone
may result in violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to
affect the functioning of the national economy in two ways. First, the
costs of violent crime are substantial, and, through the mechanism of
insurance, those costs are spread throughout the population. . . .
Second, violent crime reduces the willingness of individuals to travel to
areas within the country that are perceived to be unsafe. . . . The
Government also argues that the presence of guns in schools poses a
substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning
environment. A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a
less productive citizenry. That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on
the Nation's economic well-being. As a result, the Government argues that
Congress could rationally have concluded that [the Act] substantially
affects interstate commerce.
. . .
Under the theories that the Government presents in support of [the Act],
it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, even in
areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States
historically have been sovereign. Thus, if we were to accept the
Government's arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an
individual that Congress is without power to regulate.
. . .
[This] rationale lacks any real limits because, depending on the level of
generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial. Under the
dissent's rationale, Congress could just as easily look at child rearing
as "fall[ing] on the commercial side of the line" because it
provides a "valuable service - namely, to equip [children] with the
skills they need to survive in life and, more specifically, in the
workplace." . . . We do not doubt that Congress has authority under
the Commerce Clause to regulate numerous commercial activities that
substantially affect interstate commerce and also affect the educational
process. That authority, though broad, does not include the authority to
regulate each and every aspect of local schools.
. . . The
possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic
activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect
any sort of interstate commerce. Respondent was a local student at a
local school; there is no indication that he had recently moved in
interstate commerce, and there is no requirement that his possession of
the firearm have any concrete tie to interstate commerce.
To uphold
the Government's contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon
inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional
authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort
retained by the States.
Has
the Court's decision in this case increased Congress's power or held it
in check?
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