good morning ladies and gentlemen this is judge easterbrook i am in the courtroom in chicago judges rope an hour and sykes are participating by phone as are all of the lawyers this is a more complicated hookup than the court has ever tried before so there are bound to be some teething problems if you find that multiple people are speaking at once what be a good idea for everybody to be quiet and we will sort this out i will let the lawyers know when time reserved for robot will is approaching and mark call out other time considerations i hope this will go smoothly but if not we will take the time needed to make sure that everything works so our st case for argument this morning is if trans it seems that any restriction on d f trances here is based on its status as a beer wholesaler not as a motor carrier and given that the federal aviation administration authorization act just applies to laws related to motor carriers not laws related to wholesalers we can you please explain to us how do the a prohibited interest actually conflict with with with  to consummate yes transit would perform only the functions of a carrier and an independent rd party would perform the functions of the liquor wholesaler all of the commissions went to the agreed with that proposition and so what the commission is attempting to do here is to restrict transit from providing purely at transportation services now under this federal act emmet said we'll be named a  directly targets transportation services of a carrier have transit in the carrier yet transit wishes to perform but all commissioned witnesses agree our transportation services to the c a different version of george romero's question which is if if transit were to carry indiana full sales liquor what would happen concretely and t businesses liquor is indiana going to try to prevent the transportation service henri's indiana going to revoke somebodies license somebody like a license or both if yet if you have transit were to provide transportation services to indiana wholesale in addition to that potential for criminal prosecution on ip only if it is also a beer wholesaler how can we characterize that as a restriction on a motor carrier as opposed to a restriction on the wholesaler and again i'm sure the federal act the supreme court has made clear that they enforce my actions enforcement of state law in a way that has a significant effect on them for the services that a carrier can provide say my my problem with your argument is that it seems to me that the prohibited interest statute is not being applied to me f t in that sta the hitting the service is under the st amendment i don't deny that that status is relevant to the st amendment analysis but i don't think that it's dispositive of the rational preemption question again which is the question that state arguments also require the court to ignore the under about it and that the actual reason for the commission of action in the case was to protect the powerful politically connected industry incumbents and and not i think that issue is is probably before the court now and again both relying on husky or having a strict sort of preemption holding would be narrow remedy transit on the other hand bec supremacy clause says that federal law is supreme it doesn't say it's supreme if on balance a court thinks it's better than the state law it just says federal law is supreme i c understand an argument that the st amendment permits a state to regulate the transportation of like or not withstanding any federal law because the federal laws based on the commerce clause in the  amendment is more recent but i don't understand where balancing comes from where does it come from well i think that comes from the ima indiana is not using that language it doesn't seem to be a case of transportation into the state only well in this understanding well know how to record here do within the state by an interstate carrier and that looks like it comes within the scope of the federal preemption because there may be two answers here one for interest state and one for interstate well required at what level of generality do we evaluate the state's interests to be evaluate the interest in maintaining the horizontal separation structure of the prohibited interest transportation services provided by a motor carrier because that's the way sion might shake out a little bit differently depending on what the record  roadmap for you know a producer that's been automotive carriers that they can deliver direct to consumer direct respects as there is no logical stopping point to to that argument and because that would really you know encourage experimentation but what is trending it's wanting a uniform standard that if states that don't have that have had a problem but you can't do it but i think the evidence well i was actually asking a legal question does indiana law permit the commission to take a regulatory enforcement action against the carrier's license transit's license for entering into this arrangement about whether there is even an indirect conflict here i understood this to be an indirect preemption case not a direct preemption case we have an express preemption clause and a claim that the operation of  to undermine the three tier system and counsel said that this is part and parcel as a preacher so that it's not the toughest times the wind expressly rejected that kind of argument and said that the court needs to look that you have transit would not be wholesaling what is that you see here is indiana's desire to prohibit yet transit from providing transportation services that is the future of the distinct future