Opinion ID: 201060
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lopez and Morrison

Text: 8 Morales argues that the materials-in-commerce Morales argues that the materials-in-commerce jurisdictional element in § 2251(a) is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress's Commerce Clause power 1 in light of United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000). In Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA), 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(1)(A), which prohibited knowingly possessing a firearm within 1000 feet of a school. The Supreme Court enumerated three categories of activities that Congress may properly regulate pursuant to the Commerce Clause: 9 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. 10 Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (citations omitted). Since the GFSZA regulated neither channels nor instrumentalities of interstate commerce, the Lopez Court analyzed the statute under the third category: activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Id. at 559. 11 In finding the GFSZA constitutionally infirm, the Supreme Court held that because the statute by its terms has nothing to do with `commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise, it could not be upheld under precedents that approved regulations of activities that ... are connected with a commercial transaction that, when viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce. Id. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624. Second, the Court observed that the GFSZA lacked a jurisdictional element that would ensure, through case-by-case inquiry, that the firearm possession in question affects interstate commerce. Id. Finally, the Court stated that although congressional findings about the legislative judgment that the activity in question substantially affected interstate commerce were not required, such findings would have helped the Court evaluate the impact of the activity on interstate commerce even though no such substantial effect was visible to the naked eye. Id. at 563, 115 S.Ct. 1624. Based on these considerations, the Court found the GFSZA to be unconstitutional. Id. at 567-68, 115 S.Ct. 1624. 12 The Supreme Court amplified Lopez's holding five years later in Morrison, when the court evaluated a federal civil remedy for victims of gender-based violence, as set forth in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), 42 U.S.C. § 13981 (A person ... who commits a crime of violence motivated by gender ... shall be liable to the party injured, in an action for the recovery of compensatory and punitive damages....). There, as in Lopez, the court was faced with another so-called category three regulation, pertaining to activities that allegedly have a substantial relation to interstate commerce. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 600, 120 S.Ct. 1740. Drawing on its reasoning in Lopez, the Morrison Court identified four factors to consider in determining whether a statute regulates an activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce: (1) whether the statute regulates economic or commercial activity; (2) whether the statute contains an express jurisdictional element that limits the reach of its provisions; (3) whether Congress made findings regarding the regulated activity's impact on interstate commerce; and (4) whether the link between [the regulated activity] and a substantial effect on interstate commerce was attenuated. Id. at 610-12, 120 S.Ct. 1740. 13 In striking down the VAWA, the Court found that gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity, and that the statute lacked a jurisdictional element establishing that the federal cause of action is in pursuance of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. Id. at 613, 120 S.Ct. 1740. Further, the Court held that while Congress had made explicit findings regarding the serious impact that gender-motivated violence has on victims and their families, ... the existence of congressional findings is not sufficient, by itself, to sustain the constitutionality of Commerce Clause legislation. Id. at 614, 120 S.Ct. 1740. Finally, the Court found that a causal chain from the initial occurrence of violent crime ... to every attenuated effect upon interstate commerce ... would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption. Id. at 615, 120 S.Ct. 1740. 14