Opinion ID: 746461
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Tenth Amendment & Abstention

Text: 30 Black and Davis next urge us to find that the CSRA violates the Tenth Amendment or to abstain from enforcing the Act on the basis of federalism and comity. They believe that the Act interferes with the States' traditional authority over matters concerning domestic relations and enforcement of criminal laws. 2 31 The Tenth Amendment provides that [t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. U.S. C ONST. amend. X. The Tenth Amendment and Article I complement each other. Mussari, 95 F.3d at 791. That is, if Congress acts pursuant to an enumerated power, there can be no violation of the Tenth Amendment. Id. (citing New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 156, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 2417-18, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992)). Here, because we find that Congress has acted within its Commerce Clause power, we necessarily find no Tenth Amendment violation. 32 Black and Davis believe that we should abstain from enforcing the CSRA because it intrudes into family law matters traditionally reserved to the States. Black relies heavily on Lopez for this point. In Lopez, the Government argued that the possession of a firearm in a local school zone might result in violent crime which in turn would substantially affect interstate commerce because violent crime would cause insurance costs to increase and these costs would have to be spread among the population. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 563-64, 115 S.Ct. 1631-32. The Government suggested that citizens would not want to travel to areas believed to be unsafe and that guns in school zones would threaten the education process and result in a less productive nation. Id. at 564, 115 S.Ct. at 1632. The Court concluded that [u]nder the Government's 'national productivity' reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example. Id. However, we reiterate that in Lopez, the Government argued that the Gun-Free School Zones Act substantially affected interstate commerce after the Court quickly disposed of the first two categories enumerated in Lopez. The context of the case before us is different from that in Lopez because the CSRA's relation to interstate commerce is not nearly so tenuous as that of the Gun-Free School Zones Act in Lopez. 33 More importantly, the CSRA does not attempt to regulate domestic relations. In Black's case, a federal court did not enter the initial divorce decree nor did it impose the underlying support obligation that Black refused to pay. Rather, a state court imposed the initial support obligation. Black frustrated that obligation by moving out-of-state and willfully evading state collection efforts. The longer that Black refused to pay, the more the amount of support which he owed accumulated until his case came to fall under the CSRA's authority. Thus, the CSRA did not intervene until an obligation, already imposed under state law, [came] to wear an interstate face. Mussari, 95 F.3d at 791. We also stress that the CSRA does not permit a federal court to revise the domestic relationship adjudicated by the State courts or to modify any part of a State court decree. Sage, 92 F.3d at 107. Finally, we have Congress' express intent that the CSRA was not meant to displace the States' authority over domestic relations. Congressman Henry Hyde, who spearheaded the CSRA, stated: 34 I am especially incensed by those thousands and thousands of delinquent parents who make a mockery of State law by fleeing across State lines to avoid enforcement actions by State courts and child support agencies.... Too often as soon as delinquent fathers move to new States, they seem to vanish as far as State enforcement agencies are concerned. It is not that States have no mechanisms available, it is that these mechanisms lose their effectiveness when a father moves to a new State.... H.R. 1241's goal is to strengthen, not to supplant, State enforcement efforts. 35 138 C ONG. R EC. H7324, H7326 (daily ed. Aug. 4, 1992). 36 Davis urges abstention because the intervention of the federal judiciary under the CSRA would disrupt the establishment and/or the continuity of an important state policy--domestic relations law. He cites Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 404, 95 S.Ct. 553, 559-60, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975) and Ankenbrandt v. Richards, 504 U.S. 689, 112 S.Ct. 2206, 119 L.Ed.2d 468 (1992) in support. However, in Sosna, the Court merely reiterated that it would disclaim any jurisdiction in the area of divorce. 419 U.S. at 404, 95 S.Ct. at 559-60. In Ankenbrandt, the Court also reaffirmed the validity of the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction in diversity cases. 504 U.S. at 697, 112 S.Ct. at 2211-12. The CSRA does not regulate domestic relations per se and does not derive its jurisdictional basis from diversity. Davis' abstention argument is misplaced. 37 In sum, this case does not give us an occasion to chafe over the principles underlying the Tenth Amendment, federalism, or comity. The CSRA does not rear its head into domestic relations issues reserved to the States. Rather, it seeks to enforce an obligation originally entered by a state court, which, due to the machinations of an evasive parent, the state court cannot enforce on its own. 38