Opinion ID: 72181
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of the Child Support Enforcement Act

Text: 13 28 U.S.C. § 228(a) declares that [w]hoever willfully fails to pay a past due support obligation with respect to a child who resides in another State shall be punished as set forth elsewhere in the statute. A past due support obligation is any sum ordered pursuant to a state law requiring payment for the support and maintenance of a child (or a child and parent living together) that is either greater than $5,000 or has been unpaid for more than one year. 28 U.S.C. § 228(b). Appellant contends that Congress exceeded its authority under both the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment. We address these arguments in turn, mindful that Appellant's failure to raise these issues at trial reduces our review to a search for plain error; however, there is no plainer error than to allow a conviction to stand under a statute which Congress was without power to enact. In essence, the statute was void ab initio, and consequently, the district court below lacked subject matter jurisdiction with respect to that charge. United States v. Walker, 59 F.3d 1196, 1198 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 547, 133 L.Ed.2d 450 (1995).
14 The Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, empowers Congress to regulate Commerce ... among the several States .... Relying principally on United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), Appellant contends the CSRA exceeds Congress' authority. To the contrary, we believe that the CSRA easily falls within the bounds of permissible legislation described by Lopez. 15 Lopez involved a challenge to the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which forbade any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone. 514 U.S. at 550, 115 S.Ct. at 1626. The Supreme Court confirmed that there are three broad areas that fall within the Commerce Clause's jurisdictional grant: 16 First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. 17 Lopez, 514 U.S. at 556, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30 (internal citations omitted). Appellant bases his arguments on the third category and contends that his child support obligations do not substantially affect interstate commerce. However, Lopez's third,  'affecting commerce' test was developed in our jurisprudence to define the extent of Congress's power over purely intra state commercial activities that nonetheless have substantial inter state effects. United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S. 669, 670, 115 S.Ct. 1732, 1733, 131 L.Ed.2d 714 (1995). Resort to category three was necessary in Lopez because possession of a firearm near a school (the crime at issue in that case) did not involve an instrumentality of, or have a connection to, interstate commerce. 18 The same cannot be said in this case. Even though Appellant's obligation to pay child support did not arise out of a typical business transaction, it still involves interstate commerce because Appellant's obligation to pay money crossed state lines. E.g., Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 256, 85 S.Ct. 348, 356, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964); see also 379 U.S. at 271, 85 S.Ct. at 364 (Black, J., concurring) (Nor is 'Commerce' as used in the Commerce Clause to be limited to a narrow, technical concept. It includes not only, as Congress has enumerated in the Act, 'travel, trade, traffic, commerce, transportation, or communication,' but also all other unitary transactions and activities that take place in more States than one.). 19 The issue does not turn on the mere fact that Appellant lives in a state different from his children. Though true, it is the implication of this fact that is telling: the difference in location of obligor and obligee requires that the satisfaction of the debt be through interstate means, United States v. Mussari, 95 F.3d 787, 790 (9th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1567, 137 L.Ed.2d 712 (1997), and satisfaction of the obligation necessarily requires resort to some method of traversing state lines. See also United States v. Sage, 92 F.3d 101, 106-07 (2d Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 784, 136 L.Ed.2d 727 (1997). This feature (which is a required element of the crime defined by the CSRA) qualifies as interstate activity and may be regulated by Congress. We thus join the other Circuits that have held that the CSRA falls within the second Lopez category as a proper exercise of Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. See United States v. Crawford, 115 F.3d 1397, 1400 (8th Cir.1997); United States v. Hampshire, 95 F.3d 999, 1003-04 (10th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 753, 136 L.Ed.2d 690 (1997); Mussari, 95 F.3d at 790-91; Sage, 92 F.3d at 106-07. 5 2. Tenth Amendment 20 The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution 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. Appellant contends the CSRA runs afoul of the Tenth Amendment because the power to regulate familial relations lies with the States, as evidenced by the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction. Appellant's argument fails for three reasons. 21 First, the Tenth Amendment reserves to the States those matters that are not delegated to the federal government. As discussed above, the CSRA is a valid exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, and Congress's valid exercise of authority delegated to it under the Constitution does not violate the Tenth Amendment. Cheffer v. Reno, 55 F.3d 1517, 1519 (11th Cir.1995). Second, the domestic relations exception, as articulated by this Court ..., divests the federal courts of power to issue divorce, alimony, and child custody decrees. Ankenbrandt v. Richards, 504 U.S. 689, 703, 112 S.Ct. 2206, 2214, 119 L.Ed.2d 468 (1992). Obviously, the CSRA does not require federal courts to issue, modify, or otherwise consider divorce, alimony and child custody or support decrees. The CSRA is best understood as part of the scheme for enforcing child support decrees, and the domestic relations exception does not apply to efforts to enforce valid decrees issued by state courts. Id. at 701-02, 112 S.Ct. at 2214. Finally, the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction generally applies to the diversity jurisdiction of federal courts and does not apply when Congress has specific authority to enact legislation. See id. at 696, 112 S.Ct. at 2211 (observing that federal jurisdiction in domestic matters arising from the District of Columbia held to be proper); Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14, 19, 67 S.Ct. 13, 15, 91 L.Ed. 12 (1946) (affirming conviction of religious believers in polygamy for violating Mann Act because [t]he fact that the regulation of marriage is a state matter does not, of course, make the Mann Act an unconstitutional interference by Congress with the police powers of the States. The power of Congress over the instrumentalities of interstate commerce is plenary;....). For these reasons, the CSRA does not violate the Tenth Amendment's reservation of State power.