Opinion ID: 3035932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the commerce clause: structure and history

Text: Chief Justice Marshall observed long ago that “[t]he objects, to which the power of regulating commerce might be directed, are divided into three distinct classes—foreign nations, the several states, and Indian Tribes. When forming this article, the convention considered them as entirely distinct.” Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1, 18 (1831). Looking to the text, the single clause indeed embodies three subclauses for which distinct prepositional language is used: “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Among legal scholars there has been considerable debate over the intrasentence unity—or disunity, as the case may be —of the three subclauses, considering that they share the common language “[t]o regulate Commerce.” Some commentators take the view that Congress’s powers over commerce with foreign nations and Indian tribes are broader than over interstate commerce. See, e.g., Kenneth M. Casebeer, The Power to Regulate “Commerce with Foreign Nations” in a Global Economy and the Future of American Democracy: An Essay, 56 U. Miami L. Rev. 25, 33-41 (2001); 1 R. Rotunda & J. Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law § 4.2 (3d ed. 1999) (“Even during periods when the Justices were debating whether to significantly restrict the congressional power to regulate intrastate activities under the commerce power, there was no serious advocacy of restrictions on the federal powers in these other areas.”). Other scholars maintain that Congress has coextensive powers under the Commerce Clause’s subdivisions. See e.g., Louis Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the Constitution 70 n.9 (1972) (“It is generally accepted, however, that the power of Congress is the same as regards both [foreign and interstate commerce.”); Saikrishna Prakash, Our Three Commerce Clauses and the Presumption of Intrasentence Uniformity, 55 UNITED STATES v. CLARK 1019 Ark. L. Rev. 1149, 1173 (2003) (“In practice, we have three different Commerce Clauses when text and history indicate that we ought to have but one.”). Despite the long-running lively debate among scholars, no definitive view emerges regarding the relationship among the three subclauses. Nonetheless, Supreme Court precedent points to the conclusion that the Foreign Commerce Clause is different than the Interstate Commerce Clause. See Japan Line, 441 U.S. at 448 (“[T]here is evidence that the Founders intended the scope of the foreign commerce power to be . . . greater” as compared with interstate commerce.). Regardless of how separate the three subclauses may be in theory, the reality is that they have been subject to markedly divergent treatment by the courts. This approach is not surprising given the considerably different interests at stake when Congress regulates in the various arenas. Most notably, regardless of whether the subject matter is drugs, gendermotivated violence, or gun possession, a prominent theme runs throughout the interstate commerce cases: concern for state sovereignty and federalism. On the other hand, “[t]he principle of duality in our system of government does not touch the authority of the Congress in the regulation of foreign commerce.” Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ill., 289 U.S. at 57. This distinction provides a crucial touchstone in applying the Foreign Commerce Clause, for which Congress’s authority to regulate has not been defined with the precision set forth by Lopez and Morrison in the interstate context. We start with the component that has dominated judicial consideration of the Commerce Clause: “among the several States.” After decades of expansive reading by the courts, see, e.g., Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 303-04 (1964) (“[W]here we find that the legislators . . . have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce, our investigation is at an end.”), the mid-1990s saw a retrenchment in Commerce Clause jurisprudence beginning with the watershed case of Lopez. In Lopez, 1020 UNITED STATES v. CLARK the Court held that a statute which criminalized possession of a firearm in a school zone was beyond Congress’s Commerce Clause authority. 514 U.S. at 552. In so holding, the Court stressed its concern that an overly expansive view of the Interstate Commerce Clause “would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.” Id. at 557 (quoting NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. at 37). The Court reiterated these concerns five years later in Morrison in striking down a provision under the Violence Against Women Act: “[T]he concern . . . that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to completely obliterate the Constitution’s distinction between national and local authority seems well founded.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615. In addition to announcing a shift to a more constrained view of Congress’s power over interstate commerce, Lopez and Morrison ossified the three-category framework that the Court had long applied to interstate commerce cases. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59; Morrison, 529 U.S. at 609-14; see also Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2215 (Scalia, J., concurring) (noting that for over thirty years, “our cases have mechanically recited that the Commerce Clause permits congressional regulation of three categories”). As noted earlier, these three familiar categories are (1) the use of the channels of interstate commerce; (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce; and (3) activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59. Within the interstate commerce arena, the guiding force of Lopez and Morrison quickly took firm hold, and lower courts have adhered closely to the three-prong structure. See, e.g., United States v. Adams, 343 F.3d 1024, 1027-28 (9th Cir. 2003) (reciting the three categories set out in Lopez and Morrison and applying the third to a statute criminalizing the intrastate possession of child pornography). This past term the Court introduced a new wrinkle in interstate commerce’s jurisprudential fabric when it held that the UNITED STATES v. CLARK 1021 Controlled Substances Act was a valid exercise of Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause. See Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2201. Raich did not alter the fundamental three-prong rubric, but the Court took a more generous view of Congress’s power over interstate commerce than seen in Lopez and Morrison. Over the dissent’s pointed objections, the majority concluded that “Congress had a rational basis for concluding that leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control would similarly affect price and market conditions.” Id. at 2207. This “rational basis” for finding a nexus between home-consumed marijuana and the interstate market put the regulation “squarely within Congress’ commerce power.” Id. In tension with the majority’s broad reading of Congress’s power over interstate commerce, the dissent emphasized that setting “outer limits” to Congress’s Commerce Clause powers “protect[s] historic spheres of state sovereignty from excessive federal encroachment.” Id. at 2220 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). Although the Supreme Court’s view of the Interstate Commerce Clause has “evolved over time,” id. at 2205, Indian Commerce Clause jurisprudence has been more of a straight line proposition. See, e.g., United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 200 (2004) (“[T]he Constitution grants Congress broad general powers to legislate in respect to Indian tribes, powers that we have consistently described as ‘plenary and exclusive’ . . . This Court has traditionally identified the Indian Commerce Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, and the Treaty Clause, Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, as sources of that power.”) (citations omitted). Indeed, the Supreme Court has commented on the “very different applications” of the Interstate and Indian Commerce Clause powers, explaining that interstate commerce jurisprudence “is premised on a structural understanding of the unique role of the States in our constitutional system that is not readily imported to cases involving the Indian Commerce Clause.” Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U.S. 163, 192 (1989). In contrast to the federal government’s relationship with the states, its relationship with Indian tribes is “based on a history of treaties and the assumption of a 1022 UNITED STATES v. CLARK ‘guardian-ward’ status.” Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 551 (1974). The Commerce Clause stands as one of the main textual grants of Congress’s plenary power to regulate this special relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes. Id. at 551-52. In this context, the Court has defined Congress’s authority under the Indian Commerce Clause without reference to the rigid categories of Lopez and Morrison. See, e.g., Lara, 541 U.S. at 196, 200-207 (upholding Congress’s authority to adjust tribal sovereignty in criminal matters under the Indian Commerce Clause without considering the three-category framework). As with the Indian Commerce Clause, the Foreign Commerce Clause has followed its own distinct evolutionary path. Born largely from a desire for uniform rules governing commercial relations with foreign countries, the Supreme Court has read the Foreign Commerce Clause as granting Congress sweeping powers. See Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ill., 289 U.S. at 59 (“[W]ith respect to foreign intercourse and trade[,] the people of the United States act through a single government with unified and adequate national power.”); see also Rotunda & Nowak § 4.2 (“The Court has always recognized a plenary power in Congress to deal with matters touching upon foreign relations or foreign trade.”); Robert J. Delahunty, Federalism Beyond the Water’s Edge: State Procurement Sanctions and Foreign Affairs, 37 Stan. J. Int’l L. 1, 16-26 (2001) (describing the origins of the Foreign Commerce Clause). This view was laid down nearly two centuries ago when Chief Justice Marshall stated that “[i]t has, we believe, been universally admitted, that [the words of the Commerce Clause] comprehend every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 1, 193 (1824). The Court has been unwavering in reading Congress’s power over foreign commerce broadly. See, e.g., California Bankers Ass’n v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21, 46 (1974) (stating that Congress’s plenary authority over foreign commerce “is not UNITED STATES v. CLARK 1023 open to dispute”); Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470, 49293 (1904) (describing the “complete power of Congress over foreign commerce”); Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. California, 509 U.S. 764, 813-14 (1993) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“Congress has broad power under Article I, § 8, cl. 3, ‘to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,’ and this Court has repeatedly upheld its power to make laws applicable to persons or activities beyond our territorial boundaries where United States interests are affected.”). There is no counterpart to Lopez or Morrison in the foreign commerce realm that would signal a retreat from the Court’s expansive reading of the Foreign Commerce Clause. In fact, the Supreme Court has never struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its powers to regulate foreign commerce. Federalism and state sovereignty concerns do not restrict Congress’s power over foreign commerce, see Japan Line, 441 U.S. at 448 n.13, and the need for federal uniformity “is no less paramount” in assessing the so-called “dormant” implications of congressional power under the Foreign Commerce Clause. Id. at 449; see also Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ill., 289 U.S. at 59 (instrumentality of a state was not entitled to import articles duty free because “with respect to foreign intercourse and trade[,] the people of the United States act through a single government with unified and adequate national power”). By contrast, under the dormant Interstate Commerce Clause, “reconciliation of the conflicting claims of state and national power is to be attained only by some appraisal and accommodation of the competing demands of the state and national interests involved.” Southern Pac. Co. v. Ariz. ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 768-69 (1945). [6] Clark’s case illustrates the predominance of national interests and the absence of state sovereignty concerns in Foreign Commerce Clause jurisprudence. No state has voiced an interest in the proceedings nor is there an indication of any state interest at stake in determining the constitutionality of § 2423(c). Because this case is divorced from the common 1024 UNITED STATES v. CLARK federal/state interplay seen in the Interstate Commerce Clause cases, we find ourselves in sparsely charted waters. We thus look to the text of § 2423(c) to discern whether it has a constitutionally tenable nexus with foreign commerce. B. SECTION 2423(C)’S REGULATION OF COMMERCIAL SEX ACTS IS A VALID EXERCISE OF CONGRESS’S FOREIGN COMMERCE CLAUSE POWERS Taking a page from Raich, we review the statute under the traditional rational basis standard. Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2211. The question we pose is whether the statute bears a rational relationship to Congress’s authority under the Foreign Commerce Clause. [7] Although it is important to view the statute as a whole, parsing its elements illustrates why the statute fairly relates to foreign commerce. The elements that the government must prove under § 2423(c)’s commercial sex acts prong are straightforward. First, the defendant must “travel[ ] in foreign commerce.” 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c). Second, the defendant must “engage[ ] in any illicit sexual conduct with another person,” id., which in this case contemplates “any commercial sex act . . . with a person under 18 years of age.” 18 U.S.C. § 2423(f)(2). We hold that § 2423(c)’s combination of requiring travel in foreign commerce, coupled with engagement in a commercial transaction while abroad, implicates foreign commerce to a constitutionally adequate degree. [8] Beginning with the first element, the phrase “travels in foreign commerce” unequivocally establishes that Congress specifically invoked the Foreign Commerce Clause. The defendant must therefore have moved in foreign commerce at some point to trigger the statute. In Clark’s case, he traveled from the United States to Cambodia. [9] “Foreign commerce” has been defined broadly for purposes of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, with the statutory definiUNITED STATES v. CLARK 1025 tion reading, in full: “The term ‘foreign commerce’, as used in this title, includes commerce with a foreign country.” 18 U.S.C. § 10. Admittedly, this definition is not particularly helpful given its rearrangement of the words being defined in the definition itself. Courts have understandably taken the broad wording to have an expansive reach. See, e.g., United States v. Montford, 27 F.3d 137, 139-40 (5th Cir. 1994) (discerning that “Congress intended foreign commerce to mean travel to or from, or at least some form of contact with, a foreign state”); Londos v. United States, 240 F.2d 1, 6 (5th Cir. 1957) (concluding that foreign commerce under § 10 “means passing to and fro”). We likewise see no basis on which to impose a constrained reading of “foreign commerce” under § 2423(c). Clark got on a plane in the United States and journeyed to Cambodia. This act is sufficient to satisfy the “travels in foreign commerce” element of § 2423(c). [10] Once in Cambodia, the second element of § 2423(c) was also met, namely, “engage[ment] in any illicit sexual conduct with another person,” 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c), which in this case was commercial sex under § 2423(f)(2). As the Supreme Court recognized centuries ago, the Commerce Clause “comprehend[s] every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations.” Gibbons, 22 U.S. at 193; see also Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ill., 289 U.S. at 5657 (same). Section 2423(c) regulates a pernicious “species of commercial intercourse”: commercial sex acts with minors. [11] The statute expressly includes an economic component by defining “illicit sexual conduct,” in pertinent part, as “any commercial sex act . . . with a person under 18 years of age.” 18 U.S.C. § 2423(f)(2). “Commercial sex act” is defined as “any sex act, on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.” 18 U.S.C. § 1591(c)(1). Thus, in the most sterile terms, the statute covers the situation where a U.S. citizen engages in a commercial transaction through which money is exchanged for sex acts. 1026 UNITED STATES v. CLARK [12] The essential economic character of the commercial sex acts regulated by § 2423(c) stands in contrast to the noneconomic activities regulated by the statutes at issue in Lopez and Morrison. See Morrison, 529 U.S. at 613 (“Gendermotivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity.”); Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 (explaining that firearm possession statute was purely a criminal statute). In both Lopez and Morrison, the Supreme Court voiced strong concerns over Congress’s use of the Commerce Clause to enact “a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561). Like the statute regulating illicit drugs at issue in Raich, the activity regulated by the commercial sex prong of § 2423(c) is “quintessentially economic,”17 125 S. Ct. at 2211, and thus falls within foreign trade and commerce.18 17 The evolving definition of “economics” presents a slight quirk to the analysis. Although the definition in the 1966 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary cited by the Supreme Court in Raich only refers to “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities,” more recent versions of Webster’s have added “services” to the definition. See, e.g., Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 364 (10th ed. 1993) (defining “economics” as the social science concerned with “the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services”); Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, available at www.m-w.com (same) (last visited Dec. 29, 2005). 18 It is now universally acknowledged that foreign trade or commerce includes both goods and services. See, e.g., Agreement Establishing the Multilateral Trade Organization [World Trade Organization], Dec. 15, 1993, 33 I.L.M. 13, pmbl. (“Recognizing that their relations in the field of trade and economic endeavour should be conducted with a view to . . . expanding the production and trade in goods and services”); General Agreement on Trade in Services, Dec. 15, 1993, 33 I.L.M. 44, pmbl. (“Recognizing the growing importance of trade in services for the growth and development of the world economy”); cf. Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., Inc., 419 U.S. 186, 195 (1974)(holding that, under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the “ ‘in commerce’ language of the Clayton and Robinson-Patman Act provisions . . . appears to denote only persons or UNITED STATES v. CLARK 1027 As in Raich, the fact that § 2423(c) has a criminal as well as an economic component does not put it beyond Congress’s reach under the Foreign Commerce Clause. Indeed, § 2423(c) is far from unique in using the Foreign Commerce Clause to regulate crimes with an economic facet. See, e.g., United States v. Kay, 359 F.3d 738, 741 (5th Cir. 2004) (describing “particular instrumentalities of interstate and foreign commerce that defendants used or caused to be used in carrying out the purported bribery” in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act); United States v. Hsu, 155 F.3d 189, 195-96 (3rd Cir. 1998) (discussing statute enacted as part of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 that criminalizes the theft of trade secrets related to products “produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce”); United States v. Gertz, 249 F.2d 662, 666-67 (9th Cir. 1957) (explaining that statute criminalizing the forging or counterfeiting of foreign currency is based on the Foreign Commerce Clause). [13] The combination of Clark’s travel in foreign commerce and his conduct of an illicit commercial sex act in Cambodia shortly thereafter puts the statute squarely within Congress’s Foreign Commerce Clause authority. In reaching this conclusion, we view the Foreign Commerce Clause independently from its domestic brethren. Likewise, although our precedent illustrates that the interstate categories may be adapted for use in specific foreign commerce contexts, see, e.g., Cummings, 281 F.3d at 1049 n.1, the categories have never been deemed exclusive or mandatory, nor has the Supreme Court suggested their application in relation to the Foreign Commerce Clause. Cf. Prakash, 55 activities within the flow of interstate commerce—the practical, economic continuity in the generation of goods and services for interstate markets and their transport and distribution to the consumer.”) (emphasis added). But see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 585-89 (arguing that “commerce” as understood at the time of the ratification of the Constitution encompassed only bartering and trafficking in goods) (Thomas, J., concurring). 1028 UNITED STATES v. CLARK Ark. L. Rev. at 1166 (“Apparently, the Supreme Court has never discussed the applicability of the three-part Lopez test to gauging the limits of the foreign commerce power.”). The categories are a guide, not a straightjacket. In Cummings, we upheld the constitutionality of the International Parental Kidnaping Crime Act (“IPKCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1204(a). See 281 F.3d at 1051. In so holding, we applied the interstate commerce framework but noted that Congress has “broader power” in the foreign commerce area, and this context “is quite relevant to our inquiry.” Id. at 1049 n.1. Critical to this understanding was the Supreme Court’s now familiar statement in Japan Line that “the Founders intended the scope of the foreign commerce power to be . . . greater” as compared with interstate commerce. Id. (quoting Japan Line, 441 U.S. at 448). At times, forcing foreign commerce cases into the domestic commerce rubric is a bit like one of the stepsisters trying to don Cinderella’s glass slipper; nonetheless, there is a good argument that, as found by the district court, § 2423(c) can also be viewed as a valid regulation of the “channels of commerce.” Our previous decisions have recognized that Congress legitimately exercises its authority to regulate the channels of commerce where a crime committed on foreign soil is necessarily tied to travel in foreign commerce, even where the actual use of the channels has ceased. See Cummings, 281 F.3d at 1050-51. Clark emphasizes that § 2423(b) requires that the foreign travel be with the specific intent to engage in illicit sex, whereas § 2423(c) does not have such a specific intent requirement. Although the intent element distinguishes the two statutory crimes, we do not see that it distinguishes the scope of Congress’s Constitutional authority. Under § 2423(b), the crime is contained solely within the “travels in foreign commerce” provision of the statute. Under the crime charged in this case, § 2423(c) and (f)(2), the crime requires both foreign travel and engaging in an illicit commercial sex UNITED STATES v. CLARK 1029 act. These are two different statutes with separate justifications under the Commerce Clause. [14] In sum, Clark has failed to demonstrate “a plain showing that Congress . . . exceeded its constitutional bounds,” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 607, in enacting §§ 2423(c) and (f)(2). Traveling to a foreign country and paying a child to engage in sex acts are indispensable ingredients of the crime to which Clark pled guilty. The fact that §§ 2423(c) and (f)(2) meld these economic and criminal components into a single statute does not put the conduct beyond Congress’s reach under the Foreign Commerce Clause. The rational nexus requirement is met to a constitutionally sufficient degree. Congress did not exceed its power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3, in criminalizing commercial sex acts with minors committed by U.S. citizens abroad. AFFIRMED.