A Government of Limited Powers

Abstract

Roscoe C. Filburn owned small farm in Ohio where he raised poultry, dairy cows, and modest acreage of winter wheat. Some wheat he fed his animals, some he sold, and some he kept for his family's daily bread. Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 limited wheat Mr. Filburn could grow without incurring penalties, but his 1941 crop exceeded those limits. Mr. Filburn sued. He said Claude Wickard, Secretary of Agriculture, could not enforce AAA's limits because Congress lacked authority to wheat grown for one's own use. He reasoned: In our federal system, states have authority to legislate except where Constitution constrains them, but federal government may legislate only where Constitution authorizes it. Constitution permits Congress to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among several States and may all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution its Commerce Clause powers. Mr. Filburn thought that growing and eating wheat on his land were acts in character and that their effects upon interstate commerce are at most 'indirect.' Diane Monson lives in California. She has been growing marijuana she takes to treat substantial medical problems. California Compassionate Use Act of 1996 exempts from criminal liability patients ... who possess or cultivate marijuana for medicinal purposes with recommendation or approval of physician. However, federal Controlled Substances Act classifies marijuana as Schedule I drug. Such drugs have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, and it is federal crime to manufacture, distribute, or possess them. Diane Monson (with Angel Raich, another patient using marijuana) went to court to argue that Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, could not enforce CSA against her or her doctors because Congress lacks authority to marijuana she grows for her own use. Ms. Monson argued that Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to prohibit local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with California law. In 1942, Wichard v. Filburn reached Supreme Court. Justices agreed that AAA was constitutional. They quoted Chief Justice Harlan Stone: The commerce power is not confined in its exercise to regulation of commerce among states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce ... as to make regulation of them appropriate means to attainment of legitimate end. Thus, even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still ... be reached by Congress if it exerts substantial economic effect on interstate commerce. Mr. Filburn's wheat affected interstate commerce because it kept him from buying somebody else's wheat. And while his crop was small, its effect, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial. On June 6 of this year, Justices decided six to three that Congress may Ms. Monson's marijuana garden. Justice Stevens said for Court that Commerce Clause was the Framers' response to central problem giving rise to Constitution itself: absence of any federal commerce power under Articles of Confederation. Thus Commerce Clause power is capacious, and case law firmly establishes Congress' power to purely local activities that are part of an economic 'class of activities' that have substantial effect on interstate commerce. principle of stare decisis obliges American courts to decide similar cases similarly. Raich virtually was Wickard. Like farmer in Wickard, respondents are cultivating, for home consumption, fungible commodity for which there is an established, albeit illegal, interstate market. Just as AAA controlled amount of wheat in interstate and foreign commerce, a primary purpose of CSA is to control supply and demand of controlled substances in both lawful and unlawful drug markets. …