Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 734.0

529US3

Unit: $U54

[10-04-01 09:35:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)

659

Breyer, J., dissenting

.

a crime of violence against a spouse or intimate partner);
§ 1951(a) (federal crime to commit robbery, extortion, physical
violence or threat thereof, where “article or commodity in
commerce” is affected, obstructed, or delayed); § 2315 (mak-
ing unlawful the knowing receipt or possession of certain
. boundary”);
stolen items that have “crossed a State .
§ 922(g)(1) (prohibiting felons from shipping, transporting, re-
ceiving, or possessing ﬁrearms “in interstate . . . commerce”).
And in a world where most everyday products or their
component parts cross interstate boundaries, Congress will
frequently ﬁnd it possible to redraft a statute using language
that ties the regulation to the interstate movement of some
relevant object, thereby regulating local criminal activity
or, for that matter, family affairs. See, e. g., Child Support
Recovery Act of 1992, 18 U. S. C. § 228. Although this possi-
bility does not give the Federal Government the power to
regulate everything, it means that any substantive limitation
will apply randomly in terms of the interests the majority
seeks to protect. How much would be gained, for example,
were Congress to reenact the present law in the form of
“An Act Forbidding Violence Against Women Perpetrated
at Public Accommodations or by Those Who Have Moved in,
or through the Use of Items that Have Moved in, Inter-
state Commerce”? Complex Commerce Clause rules creat-
ing ﬁne distinctions that achieve only random results do little
to further the important federalist interests that called them
into being. That is why modern (pre-Lopez) case law re-
jected them. See Wickard, supra, at 120; United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 116–117 (1941); Jones & Laughlin Steel
Corp., supra, at 37.

The majority, aware of these difﬁculties, is nonetheless
concerned with what it sees as an important contrary con-
sideration. To determine the lawfulness of statutes simply
by asking whether Congress could reasonably have found
that aggregated local instances signiﬁcantly affect interstate
commerce will allow Congress to regulate almost anything.