Also known as: substantially affects interstate commerce · substantial effects on interstate commerce · substantially affect interstate commerce · substantial effects test · commerce clause effects prong
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional standard under the Commerce Clause authorizing Congress to regulate intrastate economic activity when the activity, viewed in the aggregate across similarly situated actors, exerts a substantial impact on interstate markets.
Sasha Stone grows marijuana plants in her backyard for personal medical use under a state program. Federal agents seize the plants under a nationwide drug-control statute. The court upholds the seizure because Stone's cultivation belongs to a class of economic activity whose aggregate effects reach interstate drug markets.
Selena Singh carries an unloaded handgun in her car while dropping her child at a private school. Prosecutors charge her under a federal statute criminalizing such possession. The court dismisses the charge because the noneconomic local conduct lacks a direct substantial effect on interstate commerce and cannot be aggregated.
Sabrina Shah owns a small textile mill that sells all output inside one state. Federal inspectors fine her for paying subminimum wages. The court enforces the fine because the mill's production competes with goods moving in interstate commerce and therefore substantially affects that commerce.
The United States secured an indictment against appellee in the district court for southern Georgia. It charged him with violation of section 15(a)(1), (2) and (5) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The indictment alleged that appellee, in the State of Georgia, is engaged in acquiring raw materials which he manufactures into finished lumber with the intent, when manufactured, to ship it in interstate commerce to customers outside the State. He does in fact so ship a large part of the lumber so produced. There are counts charging the shipment in interstate commerce from Georgia to points outside the State of lumber in the production of which appellee employed workmen at less than the prescribed minimum wage or in excess of the prescribed maximum hours without payment of overtime. Other counts charge the employment by appellee of workmen in the production of lumber for interstate commerce at wages of less than 25 cents an hour or for more than the maximum hours per week without payment of the prescribed overtime wage. Still another count charges appellee with failure to keep records showing the hours worked each day and week by each of his employees as required by section 11(c) and the regulations of the administrator. Appellee demurred to the indictment. The district court sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment. The case comes here on direct appeal under the statutes authorizing review when the judgment sustaining the demurrer is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded. The case was argued on December 19 and 20, 1940 and decided on February 3, 1941, as amended February 17, 1941.
View caseSteven Silva assaults Sophia Singh inside a private apartment. Singh sues under a federal statute creating a civil remedy for gender-motivated violence. The court dismisses the claim because the noneconomic intrastate conduct does not substantially affect interstate commerce even when aggregated.
In September 1994 Christy Brzonkala enrolled as a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Within thirty minutes of meeting fellow students Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, both members of the varsity football team, Brzonkala alleges that the two men assaulted and repeatedly raped her. Morrison allegedly told Brzonkala after the attack that she had better not have any diseases. He later announced in a dormitory dining room that he liked to get girls drunk and made other vulgar remarks about women. Brzonkala became severely emotionally disturbed and depressed after the incident. She sought assistance from a university psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressant medication. She stopped attending classes and withdrew from the university. In early 1995 she filed a complaint against Morrison and Crawford under the university's Sexual Assault Policy. Virginia Tech conducted a hearing under its Sexual Assault Policy and a second hearing under its Abusive Conduct Policy. The first found Morrison guilty of sexual assault and suspended him for two semesters. The second hearing again found him guilty but changed the offense description to using abusive language. University officials later set aside the punishment. In December 1995 Brzonkala sued Morrison, Crawford, and Virginia Tech in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Her complaint alleged that the attack violated 42 U.S.C. §13981, the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which creates a federal cause of action for compensatory and punitive damages against persons who commit crimes of violence motivated by gender. She also asserted Title IX claims against the university. The district court dismissed the Title IX claims for failure to state a claim. It also dismissed the §13981 claim on the ground that Congress lacked authority to enact the provision under either the Commerce Clause or Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed in part, but the en banc Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion that Congress lacked constitutional authority to enact §13981. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine the constitutionality of the civil remedy provision.
View caseSimon Stern refuses to buy health insurance despite having sufficient resources. The government assesses a penalty collected through tax returns. The court upholds the penalty under the taxing power after rejecting the argument that the mandate could be sustained under the substantial-effects prong of the Commerce Clause.
In 2010 Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act containing hundreds of provisions across ten titles. The Act requires most Americans to maintain minimum essential health insurance coverage beginning in 2014 or else make a shared responsibility payment calculated as a percentage of household income subject to a floor and ceiling. The Act also expands Medicaid by requiring participating states to cover adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level while increasing federal funding but threatening loss of all Medicaid funds for noncompliance. On the day the President signed the Act Florida and twelve other states filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida challenging the individual mandate provisions under Article I. The original plaintiffs were later joined by eighteen additional states several individuals and the National Federation of Independent Business. The District Court held that the individual mandate exceeded congressional power and could not be severed from the remainder of the Act so it struck down the entire statute. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed that the individual mandate exceeded congressional power but held the provision severable from the rest of the Act while unanimously upholding the Medicaid expansion. Other courts of appeals reached conflicting results on the mandate with the Sixth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit upholding it under the commerce power and the Fourth Circuit applying the Anti-Injunction Act to bar review. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Eleventh Circuit judgment on both the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion and appointed amici curiae to address severability and the Anti-Injunction Act. The penalty for noncompliance with the individual mandate first becomes enforceable in 2014. The present suit seeks to restrain its future collection. The Act describes the payment as a penalty rather than a tax. It directs that the payment be assessed and collected in the same manner as taxes but bars the IRS from using criminal prosecutions or levies to enforce it.
View caseSterling Manufacturing ships furniture on trucks exceeding federal weight limits enacted to protect the national highway system. Federal officers stop the trucks at the border. The court sustains the limits because the regulated activity substantially affects the interstate transportation network.
The South Carolina General Assembly enacted Act No. 259 on April 28, 1933. This statute prohibits the use on state highways of motor trucks and semi-trailer motor trucks whose width exceeds 90 inches or whose gross weight including load exceeds 20,000 pounds. The Act treats semi-trailer motor trucks as single units for purposes of the weight limitation. Barnwell Brothers, Inc., along with other truckers and interstate shippers, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and additional intervenors, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina against state highway department officials. They sought to enjoin enforcement of the weight and width provisions on the grounds that the provisions had been superseded by federal law, that they infringed the Due Process Clause, and that they burdened interstate commerce. After hearing evidence, the three-judge district court ruled that the provisions had not been superseded by the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935 and that they did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The court nevertheless found that the restrictions placed an unlawful burden on interstate motor traffic on specified highways. It issued an injunction against enforcement, with exceptions for bridges not constructed with sufficient strength to support the heavy trucks of modern traffic or too narrow to accommodate such traffic safely. The district court made detailed findings that 85 to 90 percent of trucks used in interstate transportation measured 96 inches wide and exceeded 20,000 pounds when loaded. It also found that the affected highways were of standard concrete construction capable of supporting heavier axle loads and that other states and expert organizations recommended higher limits. The Supreme Court took the case on appeal. Before adoption of the 1933 Act, South Carolina had set different weight limits in 1924 and 1930. A commission appointed in 1931 recommended the current restrictions after reviewing data from the state engineer who had constructed the highways.
View caseCongress may regulate intrastate economic production when the class of activity, considered in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate markets. Courts ask whether the regulated conduct is economic or commercial and whether a rational basis exists for finding a substantial aggregate impact. Noneconomic local conduct generally cannot be aggregated.
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No. The test requires economic activity whose aggregate effects substantially affect interstate commerce. Simple noneconomic possession inside a school zone lacks that character and cannot be aggregated, so federal criminalization exceeds the commerce power.
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Aggregation focuses on the total impact of the entire class of similar conduct rather than any single instance. A farmer's home-grown wheat or a commune's off-grid electricity can be regulated because widespread replication would substantially alter national supply, demand, and prices.
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The Tenth Amendment states only that powers not delegated to the federal government remain with the states. Once Congress validly exercises its commerce power over activity with substantial interstate effects, the Tenth Amendment supplies no additional limit.
…interstate commerce. That the internal commerce of the States and the numerous state inspection, quarantine, and health laws had substantial effects on interstate commerce cannot be doubted. Nevertheless, they were not "surrendered to the general government." Of course, the principal dissent is not the first to misconstrue Gibbons . For instance, the Court…