Opinion ID: 613271
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implicit Restriction on State Power

Text: The Commerce Clause provides that Congress has power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. It is both an enumerated grant of power to Congress and an implicit restriction on state interference with interstate commerce. Since Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 53 U.S. (12 How.) 299, 318, 13 L.Ed. 996 (1851), overruled on other grounds by Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 1076, 51 L.Ed.2d 326 (1977), the Supreme Court has read the Commerce Clause to restrain state power even without congressional action. The Court has limited what states may do with interstate commerce by interpreting the negative implications of the Commerce Clause  these great silences of the Constitution. H.P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525, 535, 69 S.Ct. 657, 93 L.Ed. 865 (1949). State discrimination against interstate commerce generally will be struck down as unconstitutional unless the state can show a strong public purpose. City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 628, 98 S.Ct. 2531, 57 L.Ed.2d 475 (1978). At a minimum such facial discrimination invokes the strictest scrutiny of any purported legitimate local purpose and of the absence of nondiscriminatory alternatives. Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322, 337, 99 S.Ct. 1727, 60 L.Ed.2d 250 (1979). Nondiscriminatory state laws can also be invalidated when they impose an undue burden on interstate commerce. See Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines, Inc., 359 U.S. 520, 529, 79 S.Ct. 962, 3 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1959). Where the statute regulates even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental, it will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits. Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137, 142, 90 S.Ct. 844, 25 L.Ed.2d 174 (1970).