Opinion ID: 223249
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Necessary and Proper Clause: United States v. Comstock

Text: Congress has the power [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution its enumerated power. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 18. The Necessary and Proper Clause is intimately tied to the enumerated power it effectuates. The Supreme Court has recognized that the Necessary and Proper Clause is not the delegation of a new and independent power, but simply provision for making effective the powers theretofore mentioned. Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U.S. 46, 88, 27 S.Ct. 655, 663, 51 L.Ed. 956 (1907). It is merely a declaration, for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution those [powers] otherwise granted are included in the grant. Kinsella v. United States, 361 U.S. 234, 247, 80 S.Ct. 297, 304, 4 L.Ed.2d 268 (1960) (alterations in original) (quoting VI WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 383 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1906)). It reaffirms that Congress has the incidental powers necessary to carry its enumerated powers into effect. The Supreme Court's most definitive statement of the Necessary and Proper Clause's function remains Chief Justice Marshall's articulation in McCulloch v. Maryland : Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional. 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). Thus, when legislating within its enumerated powers, Congress has broad authority: the Necessary and Proper Clause makes clear that the Constitution's grants of specific federal legislative authority are accompanied by broad power to enact laws that are `convenient, or useful' or `conducive' to the authority's `beneficial exercise.' Comstock, 560 U.S. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1956 (quoting McCulloch, 17 U.S. at 413, 418). As it relates to the commerce power, the Supreme Court has essentially bound up the Necessary and Proper Clause with its substantial effects analysis. [80] As Justice Scalia noted in Raich, Congress's regulatory authority over intrastate activities that are not themselves part of interstate commerce (including activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce) derives from the Necessary and Proper Clause. 545 U.S. at 34, 125 S.Ct. at 2216 (Scalia, J., concurring). Comstock represents the Supreme Court's most recent, detailed application of Necessary and Proper Clause doctrine. In Comstock, the Supreme Court held that Congress acted pursuant to its Article I powers in enacting a federal civil-commitment statute, 18 U.S.C. § 4248, that authorized the Department of Justice to detain mentally ill, sexually dangerous prisoners beyond the term of their sentences. The majority opinion enumerated five considerations that supported the statute's constitutional validity: (1) the breadth of the Necessary and Proper Clause, (2) the long history of federal involvement in this arena, (3) the sound reasons for the statute's enactment in light of the Government's custodial interest in safeguarding the public from dangers posed by those in federal custody, (4) the statute's accommodation of state interests, and (5) the statute's narrow scope. Comstock, 560 U.S. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1965. On the breadth of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Comstock Court noted that (1) the federal government is a government of enumerated powers, but (2) is also vested `with ample means' for the execution of those powers. Id. (quoting McCulloch, 17 U.S. at 408). The Supreme Court must determine whether a federal statute constitutes a means that is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power. Id. [T]he relevant inquiry is simply `whether the means chosen are reasonably adapted to the attainment of a legitimate end under the commerce power' or under other powers that the Constitution grants Congress the authority to implement. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1957 (quotation marks omitted) (quoting Raich, 545 U.S. at 37, 125 S.Ct. at 2217 (Scalia, J., concurring)). Turning to the second factorthe history of federal involvementthe Supreme Court recognized that, beginning in 1855, persons charged with or convicted of federal offenses could be confined to a federal mental institution for the duration of their sentences. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1959. Since 1949, Congress had also authorized the postsentence detention of federal prisoners who suffer from a mental illness and who are thereby dangerous. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1961. The Supreme Court observed that [a]side from its specific focus on sexually dangerous persons, § 4248 is similar to the provisions first enacted in 1949 and therefore represented a modest addition to a longstanding federal statutory framework, which has been in place since 1855. Id. As to the third factorreasons for enactment in light of the government's interestthe Supreme Court concluded that Congress reasonably extended its longstanding civil-commitment system to cover mentally ill and sexually dangerous persons who are already in federal custody, even if doing so detains them beyond the termination of their criminal sentence. Id. The federal government: (1) is the custodian of its prisoners and (2) has the power to protect the public from the threats posed by the prisoners in its charge. Id. Turning to the fourth factoraccommodation of state intereststhe Comstock Court ruled that § 4248 properly accounts for state interests. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1962. The Supreme Court found persuasive that the statute required the Attorney General (1) to allow (and indeed encourage) the state in which the prisoner was domiciled or tried to take custody and (2) to immediately release the prisoner if the state seeks to assert authority over him. [81] Id. On the fifth and final factorthe statute's narrow scopethe Comstock Court found the statute not too sweeping in its scope and the link between § 4248 and an enumerated Article I power not too attenuated. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1963. The Supreme Court concluded that Lopez 's admonition that courts should not pile inference upon inference did not present any problems with respect to the civil-commitment statute. Id. (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 567, 115 S.Ct. at 1634). Specifically, the Comstock Court discerned that the same enumerated power that justifies the creation of a federal criminal statute, and that justifies the additional implied federal powers that the dissent considers legitimate, justifies civil commitment under § 4248 as well. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1964. The Supreme Court rejected the notion that Congress's authority can be no more than one step removed from a specifically enumerated power. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1963. Lastly, the Supreme Court emphasized that § 4248 had been applied to only a small fraction of federal prisoners. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1964 (citing evidence that 105 individuals have been subject to § 4248 out of over 188,000 federal inmates). The Supreme Court concluded that  § 4248 is a reasonably adapted and narrowly tailored means of pursuing the Government's legitimate interest as a federal custodian in the responsible administration of its prison system and thus did not endow Congress with a general police power. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1965. Although concurring in the judgment, Justice Kennedy and Justice Alito [82] did not join the Court's majority opinion. Because Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion focuses on Commerce Clause and federalism issues, we provide extended treatment of it here. Justice Kennedy's primary disagreement with the majority concerned its application of a means-ends rationality test. He advised that [t]he terms `rationally related' and `rational basis' must be employed with care, particularly if either is to be used as a stand-alone test. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1966 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Justice Kennedy observed that the phrase rational basis is typically employed in Due Process Clause contexts, where the Court adopts a very deferential review of congressional acts. Id. Under the Lee Optical test applied in such due process settings, the Court merely asks whether `it might be thought that the particular legislative measure was a rational way to correct' an evil. Id. (quoting Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U.S. 483, 487-88, 75 S.Ct. 461, 464, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955)). By contrast, Justice Kennedy asserted, under the Necessary and Proper Clause, application of a `rational basis' test should be at least as exacting as it has been in the Commerce Clause cases, if not more so. Id. The Commerce Clause precedents of Raich, Lopez, and Hodel require a tangible link to commerce, not a mere conceivable rational relation, as in Lee Optical.  Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1967. The rational basis referred to in the Commerce Clause context is a demonstrated link in fact, based on empirical demonstration. Id. Justice Kennedy reiterated Lopez 's admonition that `[s]imply because Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so.' Id. (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 557 n. 2, 115 S.Ct. at 1629 n. 2). In this regard, [w]hen the inquiry is whether a federal law has sufficient links to an enumerated power to be within the scope of federal authority, the analysis depends not on the number of links in the congressional-power chain but on the strength of the chain. Id. at ___, 130 S.Ct. at 1966. In summary, these landmark Supreme Court decisions Wickard, South-Eastern Underwriters, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Lopez, Morrison, Raich, and Comstock together set forth the governing principles and analytical framework we must apply to the commerce power issues presented here.