Opinion ID: 2995203
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Heading: Lopez and the Three Approaches to

Text: Commerce Clause Analysis The Commerce Clause gives Congress power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes. U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 3. In Lopez, the Supreme Court noted that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate and protect (1) the use of the channels of interstate commerce (category one); (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities (category two); and (3) those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce (category three). See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59. In United States v. Petersen, 236 F.3d 848, 856 (7th Cir. 2001), we pointed out that these three categories are not methods of proof; rather, they signal areas within Congress’ power to regulate. Therefore, they ought not be considered hermetically sealed constructs designed solely for rigid application. As the Supreme Court itself has acknowledged, and our colleagues in the District of Columbia Circuit have noted, many congressional exercises of authority are justifiable under more than one of the Lopez categories./2 Indeed, in Navegar, Inc. v. United States, 192 F.3d 1050, 1055 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 53 (2000), the District of Columbia Circuit pointed out that, although the categories are useful as a synopsis of the Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence, the attempt to fit a regulation squarely within one category can prove elusive, even fruitless. See also Black, 125 F.3d at 461 (stating that the Child Support Recovery Act couldconceivably fall under all three categories enumerated in Lopez). Given the overlapping nature of the Lopez categories, we believe that we shall reach a more comprehensive appreciation of the congressional determination embodied in sec. 2251(a) if we assess the statute and the acts before us from each of the perspectives set forth in Lopez and permit those different vantage points to cast illuminating cross-lights on one another. Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268, 274 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
Commerce As we noted in United States v. Kenney, 91 F.3d 884, 888 (7th Cir. 1996), Congress has, under the Commerce Power, the right to regulate the use or misuse of the channels of commerce. Congress may protect the channels of interstate commerce from immoral or injurious uses, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558 (citing Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 256 (1964)), and may forbid or punish the use of the channels to promote dishonesty or the spread of any evil or harm across state lines, see Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432, 436 (1925). This category has been used to prevent illicit goods from traveling through the channels of commerce. See United States v. Robinson, 119 F.3d 1205, 1210 (7th Cir. 1996) (citing Heart of Atlanta, 379 U.S. at 256). Examples of activity falling within category one include the shipment of stolen goods, kidnapped persons, prostitutes and guns. See United States v. Wilson, 73 F.3d 675, 680 n.5 (7th Cir. 1996). In Kenney, we explicitly considered the scope of Congress’ authority to regulate the channels of interstate commerce and concluded that 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(o), which outlaws the transfer or possession of machine guns, did not fit comfortably within this analytical framework. See Kenney, 91 F.3d at 889. Significantly, we noted that, unlike sec. 922(o), all of the category one examples cited in Lopez contain a jurisdictional nexus element. See id. (citing 18 U.S.C. sec.sec. 2312- 2315 (interstate shipment of stolen goods); 18 U.S.C. sec. 1201 (interstate transport of kidnapping victims); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941) (regulation of working conditions in the production of goods for interstate commerce)). Notably, the application of sec. 2251(a), at issue in this case, differs from sec. 922(o) in precisely the way that we found so significant in Kenney. Unlike sec. 922(o), the activity here is tied specifically to interstate activity. The jurisdictional nexus must be established; the picture must have been transported in interstate commerce, a movement that Congress may prohibit in order to prevent the spread of injurious or immoral uses. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558. Through sec. 2251(a), Congress has set out to prohibit the interstate movement of a commodity through the channels of interstate commerce, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559, and also to protect those channels from the immoral impact of child pornography. The application of sec. 2251(a) to Mr. Schaffner’s conduct achieves that permissible congressional purpose.
Commerce The plain language of sec. 2251(a) regulates the movement of visual depictions of child pornography in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court’s formulation of its three analytical categories in Lopez explicitly included within the second category the regulation of things in interstate commerce, 514 U.S. at 558./3 Although some recent decisions have articulated a reluctance to include within this category the power to regulate, as opposed to protect, things in interstate commerce,/4 in Black, 125 F.3d at 460, we nevertheless held that the Child Support Recovery Act, 18 U.S.C. sec. 228, is permissible under category two because it regulates the nonpayment of interstate child support obligations, thus regulating a thing in interstate commerce./5 Our court has upheld, as consistent with Lopez, the prohibition of the possession of a firearm that has traveled in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(g)(1), see Bell, 70 F.3d at 497- 98,/6 and the federal carjacking statute, 18 U.S.C. sec. 2119, see United States v. Taylor, 226 F.3d 593, 600 (7th Cir. 2000). Although Bell, stressing the statute’s explicit jurisdictional element, did not peg its analysis to one of the Lopez constructs, and Taylor, relying on category three, saw no necessity to discuss category two, see Taylor, 226 F.3d at 599, we later acknowledged in Petersen that both of these statutes are properly characterized as permissible exercises of Congress’ Commerce Clause power under category two. See Petersen, 236 F.3d at 856. Notably, our colleagues in the Tenth Circuit also have determined that category two encompasses congressional regulation of things in interstate commerce. See United States v. Dorris, 236 F.3d 582, 586 (10th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 1635 (2001) (holding that sec. 922(g) is viewed best under categories one and two because it orders that the channels of interstate commerce be kept clear of firearms (category one) and addresses items sent in interstate commerce (category two)). We believe that the symbiotic relationship of categories one and two, which the Tenth Circuit aptly perceived in its analysis of the firearms provision, also is present with respect to the provision before us today prohibiting the transportation of child pornography. Through the invocation of an explicit jurisdictional nexus, Congress has limited the scope of its regulation to the transportation of the item in interstate commerce. Thus, it has sought to prevent the spread of pornographic material depicting children by forbidding its presence in interstate commerce.
Interstate Commerce In United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S.