Level Up: Employing the Commerce Clause to Federalize the Sale of Goods

Abstract

The Commerce Clause has received much attention over the last year given the debate over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Although the Supreme Court upheld the Act, the Supreme Court did hold that Congress overstepped its powers under the Commerce Clause by mandating national health care. Despite this recent ruling reigning in Congressional power, the Commerce Clause still is an effective means for Congress to enact certain types of federal legislation involving interstate commerce. One such legislation, as proposed in this article, is a federal sales act. Currently, sales law is state legislation modeled from Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Article 2 is becoming increasingly ineffectual, biased and outdated, thus impeding economic development, escalating the complexity of commercial transactions and increasing disputes. Before these defects overly hinder commercial transactions, they must be fixed. Unfortunately, the current uniform code amendment process has thwarted attempts to revise Article 2 due to its cumbersome and consensus-oriented approach. Given the inability to revise Article 2 through the current system, an entirely new approach is needed to the law of sales - the enactment of a federal sales act to replace Article 2. Such an act would ameliorate Article 2’s deficiencies and falls within Congressional power under both the Commerce Clause and traditional notions of federalism.