Opinion ID: 746881
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Commerce Clause Analysis of FACE

Text: 22 The Founding Fathers sought through the Constitution to devise a form of government in which the opportunity for the governing to tyrannize the governed would be minimized through a system of offsetting and separated powers. A paramount component of their design was the establishment of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers and the recognition that state governments possess all remaining  'numerous and indefinite'  powers. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 552, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1626, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (quoting The Federalist No. 45, at 292-93 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961)). As with the separation of powers among the coordinate branches of the federal government, this segregation of power between state and federal governments was designed to reduce the danger of oppression inherent in unchecked power. See id. 23 One of the enumerated powers apportioned to the federal government is contained in the Commerce Clause, which provides that [t]he Congress shall have 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. From early in our history as a nation, the Commerce Clause has been understood as a broad grant of the power to prescribe the rule[s] by which commerce is to be governed, limited only by constitutional constraints. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 196, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). 24 We need not restate the development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence for discussions of its evolution abound. See, e.g., Lopez, 514 U.S. at 553-59, 115 S.Ct. at 1626-30; Steven A. Delchin, Note, Viewing the Constitutionality of the Access Act Through the Lens of Federalism, 47 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 553, 559-74 (1997). Suffice it to say that by late 1994 and early 1995, when the appeal in American Life League was under deliberation, the principles governing the analysis of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause were considered to be firmly established. The Supreme Court had made clear that the commerce power extends not only to 'the use of channels of interstate or foreign commerce' and to 'protection of the instrumentalities of interstate commerce ... or persons or things in commerce,' but also to 'activities affecting commerce.'  Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276-77, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2360, 69 L.Ed.2d 1(1981) (alteration in original) (quoting Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 1359, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971)). Further, it was well established that when a reviewing court attempted to determine whether Congress had exceeded its commerce power, its task was merely to ask whether a rational basis existed for concluding that the regulated activity affected interstate commerce. See id. This standard of review was so deferential to congressional judgment, and the transformation from a local to a national economy so complete, that it was widely accepted that Congress possessed virtually unlimited authority to legislate under the Commerce Clause. See, e.g., Deborah Jones Merritt, Commerce!, 94 Mich. L.Rev. 674, 675 (1995). Indeed, it had been approximately 60 years since the Supreme Court had invalidated any provision adopted by Congress as exceeding its commerce power. 25 Against this legal background, this court decided American Life League, Inc. v. Reno, 47 F.3d 642 (4th Cir.1995), in which we applied these well-settled rules of Commerce Clause adjudication to FACE and held that the extensive legislative record provided a rational basis for Congress to conclude that the regulated activity affects interstate commerce. Id. 47 F.3d at 647. We pointed to the following facts upon which Congress relied to find that interstate commerce was threatened by the activity regulated by FACE: Many women travel across state lines to seek reproductive health care; [r]eproductive health facilities engage doctors and other staff in an interstate market; [t]hese facilities buy medical and office supplies that move in interstate commerce; and [c]linics have been closed because of blockades and sabotage and have been rendered unable to provide services. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Based on these findings, we held that the commerce power permits Congress to regulate activities affecting reproductive health services. Id. 26 The United States argues that the district court erred in failing to follow American Life League and that our analysis of whether, in enacting FACE, Congress acted within its authority to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce is controlled by that opinion. A decision of a panel of this court becomes the law of the circuit and is binding on other panels unless it is overruled by a subsequent en banc opinion of this court or 'a superseding contrary decision of the Supreme Court.'  Etheridge v. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co., 9 F.3d 1087, 1090 (4th Cir.1993) (quoting Busby v. Crown Supply, Inc., 896 F.2d 833, 840-41 (4th Cir.1990)). Since there has been no intervening en banc decision calling American Life League into question, we are bound by our prior opinion unless it proves untenable in light of the later Supreme Court decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). See United States Dep't of Health & Human Servs. v. FLRA, 983 F.2d 578, 581-82 (4th Cir.1992) (A decision by a panel of this court, or by the court sitting en banc, does not bind subsequent panels if the decision rests on authority that subsequently proves untenable.); Faust v. South Carolina State Highway Dep't, 721 F.2d 934, 940 (4th Cir.1983) (same). For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the result of American Life League controls our decision. 27 Because the reasoning expressed in Lopez is of considerable importance to our decision, we recite it in some detail. In the course of reviewing the historical development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, the Lopez Court emphasized that even the modern-era decisions giving an expansive reading to Congress' commerce power stress that there are outer limits to that authority: 28 [T]he scope of the interstate commerce power must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government. 29 Id. at 556-57, 115 S.Ct. at 1628-29 (quoting NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 624, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937)). And, the Court noted that it had heeded that warning and undertaken to decide whether a rational basis existed for concluding that a regulated activity sufficiently affected interstate commerce. Id. at 557, 115 S.Ct. at 1629. Thus, although the Commerce Clause granted Congress broad authority  'to regulate commerce,'  id. (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 196, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 2023-24, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968)), the Court continued, Congress may not  'use a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities,'  id. (quoting Wirtz, 392 U.S. at 196 n. 27, 88 S.Ct. at 2024 n. 27). 30 Bearing these principles in mind, the Court then set forth the three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate consistent with the Commerce Clause: 31 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. 32 Id. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30 (citations omitted). With respect to the last category, the Court explained that despite a lack of clarity in its earlier cases, the proper test requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity 'substantially affects' interstate commerce, not whether the activity merely affects interstate commerce. Id. at 559, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. 33 Turning to application of these principles to § 922(q), the Court quickly dismissed the first two categories--the regulation of the channels of interstate commerce and of the instrumentalities of, or persons or things traveling in, interstate commerce--as possible bases for Congress' adoption of § 922(q) and focused its attention on whether the final category could support the statute. See id. The Court first discussed whether § 922(q) could be sustained under our cases upholding regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce and concluded that it could not. Id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. The Court noted that it had upheld a wide variety of congressional Acts regulating intrastate economic activity where [it had] concluded that the activity substantially affected interstate commerce, citing as examples the regulation of surface coal mining in Hodel, 452 U.S. at 276-83, 101 S.Ct. at 2360-63; of extortionate credit transactions in Perez, 402 U.S. at 150-57, 91 S.Ct. at 1359-63; of restaurants utilizing substantial interstate supplies in Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 301-05, 85 S.Ct. 377, 382-84, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964); of hotels catering to interstate travelers in Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 253-58, 85 S.Ct. 348, 355-58, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964); and of the production and consumption of homegrown wheat in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 118-29, 63 S.Ct. 82, 85-91, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942). Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559-60, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30. The Court characterized this body of case law as establishing a clear pattern holding that congressional regulation of economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce will be upheld. See id. at 560, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. Pointing to Wickard--which the Court indicated was perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate activity--the Court stressed that even the regulation of homegrown wheat intended for home consumption at issue there involved economic activity in a way that the possession of a gun in a school zone does not. Id. The Court thus held that § 922(q) did not fit within this pattern because: 34 Section 922(q) is 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. Section 922(q) is not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated. It cannot, therefore, be sustained under our cases upholding regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce. 35 Id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31 (footnote omitted). 36 The Court next stressed that § 922(q) contained no express jurisdictional element to insure through case-by-case examination that the possession at issue had a connection with or an effect on interstate commerce. See id. And, although recognizing that a reviewing court must undertake an independent evaluation of the constitutionality of congressional action pursuant to the commerce power and observing that Congress normally is not required to make formal findings as to the substantial burdens that an activity has on interstate commerce, the Court noted that Congress had made no legislative findings regarding the effects upon interstate commerce of gun possession in a school zone that could enable the Court to evaluate the legislative judgment that the activity in question substantially affected interstate commerce, even though no such substantial effect was visible to the naked eye. Id. at 562-63, 115 S.Ct. at 1631-32 (internal quotation marks omitted). 37 Finally, the Court rejected the Government's arguments that § 922(q) in fact substantially affected interstate commerce. See id. at 563-66, 115 S.Ct. at 1631-33. The Government had maintained that possession of a firearm in a school zone increased the likelihood of violent crime, which in turn disrupted interstate commerce by reducing the willingness of individuals to travel interstate to those areas that are perceived to be unsafe. Furthermore, the Government asserted that the presence of firearms in a school zone threatened the educational process, thereby causing a less productive national economy. The Court repudiated these arguments on the basis that to accept them would leave no activity beyond Congress' reach, a result antithetical to the notion that the federal government is one of limited power. See id. at 564-68, 115 S.Ct. at 1632-34. Once again stressing the importance of limited federal powers in the constitutional scheme, the Court explained that the uncertainty arising from the need to determine whether a given activity is commercial or noncommercial was not a sufficient reason to abandon the principles of federalism upon which our nation was founded. See id. at 566, 115 S.Ct. at 1633. Therefore, accepting that no precise formulation was available, the Court concluded that the guiding principles pointed the way to a correct decision with regard to § 922(q): The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. Id. at 567, 115 S.Ct. at 1634. 38 The question of the constitutionality of FACE in light of Lopez has provoked widespread debate. See, e.g., Kathleen F. Brickey, Crime Control and the Commerce Clause: Life After Lopez, 46 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 801, 839-43 (1996) (noting that Lopez was a counterpoint to the trend of expanding Commerce Clause authority, but that its principal legacy may be its symbolic value); Deborah Jones Merritt, Commerce!, 94 Mich. L.Rev. 674, 724-26 (1995) (predicting that courts will continue to find that FACE is constitutional post-Lopez ); Benjamin W. Roberson, Abortion as Commerce: The Impact of United States v. Lopez on Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, 50 Vand. L.Rev. 239, 254-68 (1997) (opining that FACE is unconstitutional in light of Lopez ); Steven A. Delchin, Note, Viewing the Constitutionality of the Access Act Through the Lens of Federalism, 47 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 553, 624 (1997) (maintaining that FACE, as an exercise of the commerce power, is clearly a congressional overreaching of power (footnote omitted)); Lan Hoang, Note, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248: The Controversy Behind the Remedy, 20 Seton Hall Legis. J. 128, 166 (1996) (noting that recent Supreme Court opinions, including Lopez, may be indicative of a potential reassessment of FACE); Anna Kampourakis & Robin C. Tarr, Note, About F.A.C.E. in the Supreme Court: The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in Light of Lopez, 11 St. John's J. Legal Comment. 191, 214 (1995) (noting that [g]iven the recent conservative trend of the Supreme Court ... the prospects for FACE's survival are not bright); John M. Scheib, Note, Cheffer v. Reno: Is the Regulation of Abortion Clinic Protests the Regulation of Interstate Commerce?, 41 Vill. L.Rev. 867, 898-906 (1996) (criticizing the decision in Cheffer v. Reno, 55 F.3d 1517 (11th Cir.1995), for having ignored critical aspects of Lopez ). There is by no means a general consensus as to whether Lopez should be viewed as an epochal decision revolutionizing Commerce Clause jurisprudence as Justice Souter forewarned in his dissenting opinion, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 614-15, 115 S.Ct. at 1656-57 (Souter, J., dissenting), or whether it merely clarifies the outer limit to Congress' commerce power. What is clear, however, is that we cannot say that the result reached in American Life League is no longer tenable in light of Lopez. 39 The Lopez Court made clear that its holding that Congress had exceeded its commerce authority in enacting § 922(q) was driven by a concern for maintaining a constitutionally appropriate federal-state balance of powers by interpreting the Commerce Clause in a manner that would not grant Congress a general police power. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 552-53, 564-68, 115 S.Ct. at 1626-27, 1632-34; see also id. at 568-83, 115 S.Ct. at 1634-42 (Kennedy, J., concurring); id. at 584-602, 115 S.Ct. at 1642-51 (Thomas, J., concurring). Indeed, the Lopez decision both begins and ends its analysis with reference to the necessity of construing Congress' commerce power so that a federal government of enumerated, limited powers is preserved. See id. at 552-53, 564-68, 115 S.Ct. at 1626-27, 1632-34. The Court recognized that some line must be drawn to separate that which is truly national, and therefore is subject to congressional regulation, from that which is truly local, and therefore is not. See id. at 567-68, 115 S.Ct. at 1633-34. Although stressing that the question of where that line is to be drawn necessarily is a complex one, the Court emphasized several keys in its analysis. 40 The Court repeatedly pointed to a distinction between the regulation of, on the one hand, those activities that are commercial or economic in nature--or arise out of or are connected with a commercial transactionand, on the other hand, those activities that are not. In the two instances in which it stated the controlling analysis, the Court focused on the fact that the possession of a gun in a school zone was neither itself an economic or commercial activity nor had any connection with such activity. See id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31 (Section 922(q) is 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.); id. at 567, 115 S.Ct. at 1634 (The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce.). Further, Lopez characterized its prior Commerce Clause decisions, including Wickard, Heart of Atlanta Motel, McClung, Perez, and Hodel, as upholding congressional enactments that regulated economic activities or activities that arose out of or were connected with commercial transactions. See id. at 559-60, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30. And, in referring to the process of determining the outer limit of Congress' commerce power the Court referred to the necessity of deciding whether an intrastate activity is commercial or noncommercial. Id. at 566, 115 S.Ct. at 1633. Finally, the Court considered important whether the regulation would intrude into an area traditionally within the sovereign power of the states or whether the subject of the regulation was one ordinarily or especially of federal concern. See id. at 561 n. 3, 563-64, 115 S.Ct. at 1631 n.3, 1631-32; id. at 580, 115 S.Ct. at 1640 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (noting that in assessing whether Congress has exceeded its commerce power, a court must inquire whether the exercise of national power seeks to intrude upon an area of traditional state concern). 41 Here, the activity regulated by FACE, while not itself economic or commercial, is closely and directly connected with an economic activity; therefore, unlike the possession of a gun in a school zone prohibited by § 922(q), we cannot conclude that FACE has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms. Id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31. FACE does not regulate the provision of reproductive health care. Rather, it regulates the use of force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with persons because they are or have been obtaining or providing reproductive health care services. Although this regulated activity is not itself commercial or economic in nature, it is closely connected with, and has a direct and profound effect on, the interstate commercial market in reproductive health care services. As the congressional reports accompanying FACE make clear, several aspects of interstate commerce are directly and substantially affected by the regulated conduct. 7 These reports indicate that many women travel across state lines to obtain reproductive health care, that facilities providing these services retain staff in an interstate employment market and utilize supplies obtained through interstate commerce, and that some reproductive health care facilities that had been the targets of the activities regulated by FACE had been forced to discontinue the provision of services. See H.R.Rep. No. 103-306, at 6-10 (1993), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 699, 703-07; H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 103-488, at 7-8 (1994), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 724, 724-25. The real and substantial connection between the conduct regulated by FACE and the interstate commercial market in reproductive health care services dictates that we need not pile inference upon inference to find a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 567, 115 S.Ct. at 1634. Accordingly, FACE does not suffer from the fundamental defect underlying the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990: Acceptance of the proposition that Congress possesses the authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate the activity at issue in FACE will not effectively remove all limitations on Congress' commerce power. Therefore, unlike § 922(q), FACE may be upheld under the line of Supreme Court authority upholding regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce. Id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. Because FACE regulates an activity that has a close connection with commercial activity and has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, we conclude that Congress possesses authority under the Commerce Clause to enact it, 8 and we thus agree with the United States that we are bound by our prior decision in American Life League. 9