Opinion ID: 779927
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lopez and Morrison applied to this Hobbs Act prosecution

Text: 49 In Lopez the Court identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power, namely: 50 First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce (citing, inter alia, United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 657, 61 S.Ct. 451 at 457, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941), sustaining statute prohibiting shipment in interstate commerce of goods produced for interstate commerce by employees whose wages and hours do not conform to the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act; statute not invalid even if its motive was to regulate local wages not otherwise subject to commerce power). 51 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 (listing as examples `destruction of an aircraft,' `thefts from interstate shipments,' and Southern R. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20, 32 S.Ct. 2, 56 L.Ed. 72 (1911), upholding Safety Appliance Act equipment requirements as applied to cars of interstate carrier moving on interstate railroad line even though particular cars were carrying only intrastate traffic). 52 Third, 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.... 53 Within this final category, admittedly, our case law has not been clear whether an activity must `affect' or `substantially affect' interstate commerce in order to be within Congress' power to regulate it under the Commerce Clause.... We conclude, consistent with the great weight of our case law, that the proper test requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity `substantially affects' interstate commerce. United States v. Lopez, 115 S.Ct. 1624 at 1629-30 (1995). 54 Lopez held unconstitutional, as beyond Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, 18 U.S.C. § 922(q) (1988 ed., Supp. V). It quickly disposed of the first and second categories of congressional commerce power, noting that section 922(q) clearly fell within neither and that if § 922(q) is to be sustained, it must be under the third category as a regulation of an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. Id. at 1630. It then went on to hold that the statute likewise could not be sustained under the third category, rejecting the Government's argument that possession of a firearm in a local school zone does indeed substantially affect interstate commerce. Id. at 1632. 55 Some five years later in Morrison the Court reconfirmed Lopez's Commerce Clause analysis and holding as well as its articulation and description of the `three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power.' Morrison at 1749. Morrison held unconstitutional, as beyond Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, 42 U.S.C. § 13981, the civil action portion of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. 23 Morrison observes that [p]etitioners do not contend that these cases fall within either of the first two categories of Commerce Clause regulation. They seek to sustain § 13981 as a regulation of activity that substantially affects interstate commerce.... [w]e agree that this is the proper inquiry. Id. at 1749. The Court held that section 13981 did not meet the requirements of the third Lopez category, stating petitioners' reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime so long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption, Morrison at 1752-53, contrary to the constitutionally required distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. Id. at 1754. 24 56
57 This category—use of the channels of interstate commerce—is clearly inapplicable to the present offenses, and the Government does not contend otherwise. 58
59 The Government contends that these offenses fall within Lopez category two because, according to the Government, the victim stores were engaged in interstate commerce, relying on United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S. 669, 115 S.Ct. 1732, 131 L.Ed.2d 714 (1995), and that therefore no substantial effect on interstate commerce had to be shown. 60 For several reasons, we reject the Government's contention that these are Lopez category two offenses. To begin with, simply because a business is engaged to any extent in interstate commerce does not alone suffice to bring regulation of any and all conduct involving it within category two. That category applies to instrumentalities of interstate commerce, such as an aircraft or a railroad line, and to persons or things in interstate commerce, such as thefts from interstate shipments. Plainly, a local retail store is not analogous to any of those. 25 The Government's argument would vastly expand Lopez 's category two, extending federal jurisdiction on a per se, categorical basis to a broad range of matters such as shoplifting of a candy bar from any business engaged in interstate commerce or children scuffling in any such business's parking lot, and would also blur the distinction between categories two and three. Moreover, we note the Seventh Circuit's observation, rejecting the Government's attempts to fit a Hobbs Act prosecution into Lopez category two, that [t]he Hobbs Act, however, falls within Lopez category three, at least where the conviction is sought to be sustained simply on the theory that the victim was engaged in interstate commerce. See United States v. Peterson, 236 F.3d 848, 856 (7th Cir.2001). 26 61 Nor do we agree that the Government's argument is supported by Robertson. There the defendant was convicted of various narcotics offenses and of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a) (RICO) by investing the proceeds of those unlawful activities in the `acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.' Id. at 1732. The Ninth Circuit, in a pre- Lopez decision, affirmed the narcotics convictions but reversed the RICO conviction, holding that the RICO enterprise —an Alaskan gold mine—was not shown to have had more than an incidental effect on interstate commerce and hence did not meet section 1962(a)'s the activities of which affect, interstate ... commerce requirement (without addressing the engaged in ... interstate commerce prong of section 1962(a)). United States v. Robertson, 15 F.3d 862, 868 (9th Cir.1994). The Ninth Circuit did not even mention, let alone discuss, the Commerce Clause or the limits of Congress's power thereunder. The Supreme Court, shortly after Lopez, reversed the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the RICO count, holding there was sufficient evidence that the gold mine was engaged in ... interstate ... commerce for purposes of section 1962(a). Robertson, 115 S.Ct. at 1733. It stated in this connection: 62 ... Robertson, who resided in Arizona, made a cash payment of $125,000 for placer gold mining claims near Fairbanks. He paid approximately $100,000 (in cash) for mining equipment and supplies, some of which were purchased in Los Angeles and transported to Alaska for use in the mine. Robertson also hired and paid the expenses for seven out-of-state employees to travel to Alaska to work in the mine.... He again hired a number of employees from outside Alaska to work in the mine. 63 ... 64 Furthermore, Robertson, the mine's sole proprietor, took $30,000 worth of gold, or 15% of the mine's total output, with him out of the State. 65 Whether or not these activities met (and whether or not, to bring the gold mine within the `affecting commerce' provision of RICO, they would have to meet) the requirement of substantially affecting interstate commerce, they assuredly brought the gold mine within § 1962(a)'s alternative criterion of `any enterprise... engaged in ... interstate or foreign commerce.' Id. 66 Robertson is a statutory construction case and does not purport to make any constitutional holding or to address (or recognize as being potentially before it) any constitutional issue, and it does not mention Lopez or discuss its three categories of Commerce Clause power. 27 67 Finally, and in any event, we reject the underlying premise of the Government's argument in this connection, namely that the victim stores here were engaged in interstate commerce as the Robertson Court understood and intended that phrase. Robertson' s principal illustrations of what is, and what is not, engaged in [interstate] commerce are as follows: 68 the Government proved that some ... [equipment and supplies] were purchased in California and transported to Alaska for use in the mine's operations. Cf. United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U.S. 271, 285, 95 S.Ct. 2150, 2159, 45 L.Ed.2d 177 (1975) (allegation that company had made local purchases of equipment and supplies that were merely manufactured out of state was insufficient to show that company was `engaged in commerce' within the meaning of § 7 of the Clayton Act). 69 ... 70 As we said in American Building Maintenance, a corporation is generally `engaged in commerce' when it is itself ` directly engaged in the production, distribution, or acquisition of goods and services in interstate commerce.' Id., at 283, 95 S.Ct., at 2158. 71 In American Building Maintenance the Court held summary judgment was properly granted that the Benton janitorial service companies, located in California, were not engaged in [interstate] commerce, for purposes of section 7 of the Clayton Act, stating: 72 The Benton companies performed a substantial portion [80% to 90%] of their janitorial services for enterprises which were themselves clearly engaged in selling products in interstate and international markets and in providing interstate communication facilities. But simply supplying localized services [in California] to a corporation engaged in interstate commerce does not satisfy the `in commerce' requirement of § 7. To be engaged `in commerce' within the meaning of § 7, a corporation must itself be directly engaged in the production, distribution, or acquisition of goods or services in interstate commerce. 73 ... 74 Similarly, although the Benton companies used janitorial equipment and supplies manufactured in large part outside of California, they did not purchase them directly from suppliers located in other States. [citation] Rather, those products were purchased in intrastate transactions from local distributors.... By the time the Benton companies purchased their janitorial supplies, the flow of commerce had ceased. See Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S., at 542-543, 55 S.Ct. at 848. Id., 2158-59 (emphasis added; footnote omitted). 75 Here there is no evidence that any of these local retail stores made any sales other than at the store premises in Fort Worth or any sales to any person or entity engaged in interstate commerce, or had any operations, facilities or employees outside of Fort Worth; nor is there any evidence that any of them acquired any of their merchandise inventory other than from instate wholesalers. 28 If the Benton companies were not engaged in interstate commerce, it necessarily follows, a fortiori, that these local retailers were not. 76
77 We accordingly conclude that the issue of whether the Hobbs Act is properly applied to these robberies turns on whether such application meets the test of Lopez category three, as to which the proper test requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity `substantially affects' interstate commerce. Id. at 1630. 78 The evidence does not reflect any particular, concrete effect on interstate commerce that in fact actually resulted from any of the four robberies. But the evidence does support the conclusions that the victim stores each regularly used their funds to, among other things, purchase from local wholesalers inventory which included (but was not shown to be limited to) items manufactured out-of-state, and that the robberies reduced, by the amounts taken ($50, $100, $145, $1,500-2,000), the funds the stores would, but for the robbery, otherwise thereafter have had available for use in (or withdrawal from) their respective businesses, including (but not limited to) use for inventory purchasing. The evidence also shows that any reduction in a retailer's purchases from its wholesaler would reduce the funds the wholesaler would otherwise thereafter have had available for use in (or withdrawal from) its business, including (but not limited to) use for purchase of out-of-state merchandise. Cf. United States v. Atcheson, 94 F.3d 1237, 1243 (9th Cir.1996) (To establish a de minimis effect on interstate commerce, the Government need not show that a defendant's acts actually affected interstate commerce ... Rather, the jurisdictional requirement is satisfied `by proof of a probable or potential impact'). Assuming that all this suffices to show that each individual robbery did probably or potentially have some minimal, attenuated and indirect affect on interstate commerce, it is clear that none individually had what could fairly be described as a substantial affect (actual, probable or potential). 79 The Government in this connection relies on the aggregation principle under which in determining whether the affect on interstate commerce is substantial the focus is not upon any one individual instance of the activity covered by the regulation but is rather upon whether the aggregate of all covered instances as a whole substantially affects interstate commerce. The validity of that general principle has long been clearly established, and is recognized in both Lopez and Morrison. At the same time, however, each of those decisions holds that the principle is not of universal or unlimited application, and refused to apply it to sustain the statutes there under consideration. Thus, in Morrison the Court recognized that the aggregate of instances of gender-motive violence within the scope of section 13981 did ultimately have a large effect on interstate commerce, id. at 1752, but nevertheless held that the aggregation principle could not be applied, stating: 80 We accordingly reject the argument that Congress may regulate non-economic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce. The Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.... The regulation and punishment of intrastate violence that is not directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved in interstate commerce has always been the province of the States. Id. at 1754. 81 The central question in this case, then, is whether this Hobbs Act prosecution can be sustained under the aggregation theory. We now turn to that question. 82
83 Because the Hobbs Act has an interstate commerce related jurisdictional element and the statutes at issue in Lopez and Morrison contained no comparable provision, as the Supreme Court's opinions in those cases emphasized, some of our sister circuits have relied on this distinction (among other considerations) in holding that Lopez and Morrison are either largely inapplicable to Hobbs Act cases, or do not require that a substantial effect on interstate commerce be shown in Hobbs Act prosecutions falling under Lopez category three. 29 We respectfully disagree. Such an approach would in effect either create a fourth category of commerce clause power, contrary to the plainly comprehensive three category approach taken in Lopez and Morrison, or would do away with the substantially affect requirement which those opinions so clearly state is constitutionally mandated in category three cases. Congress lacks the power to provide for a lesser relation to interstate commerce in that category of case simply by including a jurisdictional provision. Otherwise the principles enunciated in Lopez and Morrison would be essentially meaningless. We agree with the Seventh Circuit's observations in this respect in United States v. Wilson, 73 F.3d 675, 685 (7th Cir.1995). 30 84 This is not to say that the Hobbs Act jurisdictional element serves no function. It allows a determination in each case, based on its particular facts and characteristics, whether in that case application of the statute is consistent with Congress's Commerce Clause power. Because of that jurisdictional element the statute is not properly subject to being facially invalidated, which was essentially the result in Lopez and Morrison where the statutes involved lacked any jurisdictional element. 85
86 Some of our sister circuits have held that the refusal of Lopez and Morrison to apply the aggregation principle to sustain the statutes there under consideration is wholly inapplicable to the Hobbs Act because those statutes proscribed offenses which were not commercial or economic while robbery (or extortion, but we here deal only with robbery), which the Hobbs Act proscribes, is a commercial or economic activity as it always involves taking personal property from another person. § 1951(b)(1). See United States v. Gray, 260 F.3d 1267, 1274 (11th Cir.2001) (Unlike the statute at issue in Morrison, the Hobbs Act plainly and undeniably regulates economic activity); United States v. Malone, 222 F.3d 1286, 1295 (10th Cir. 2000) (Unlike the statutes at issue in Morrison and Lopez, the Hobbs Act regulates economic activity). But see United States v. Peterson, 236 F.3d 848, 852 (7th Cir.2001) (... the Hobbs Act does not suggest that robbery is an economic activity). 87 We respectfully take a somewhat different view of the matter. 88 The approach of these cases seems to be that whenever the regulated activity is economic, then, for purposes of Lopez category three cases, there are never any limits whatever to use of the aggregation theory and it may always be employed to satisfy (and as practical matter will always satisfy) the substantially affects requirement of Lopez category three. 31 While this would seem, at least as a practical matter, to limit Lopez category three to cases where the regulated activity was non-economic and to obliterate any distinction in economic cases between the Lopez categories, we need not and do not reach that issue. 89 Assuming, arguendo, that there is a class of category three cases as to which there are no restraints whatever on aggregation, we conclude that such a class would exclude instances where the regulated activity is not properly described as commercial or economic in the same general sense as commercial. 32 90 Lopez and Morrison each refer to both commercial and economic activities and appear to use the terms synonymously. Thus Lopez states that section 922(q) does not regulate[] a commercial activity id. at 1626 (quoted in Morrison id. 1750), and that 91 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, id. at 1631 (emphasis added), 92 and that 93 We do not doubt that Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate numerous commercial activities that substantially affect interstate commerce and also affect the educational process.... Admittedly, a determination whether an intrastate activity is commercial or noncommercial may in some cases result in legal uncertainty. Id. at 1633 (emphasis added). 94 The last sentence above quoted is likewise quoted in Morrison. Id. at 1750. Justice Kennedy, in his concurring opinion in Lopez (joined in by Justice O'Connor and joining in Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion for the Court) states: 95 Were the Federal Government to take over the regulation of entire areas of traditional state concern, areas having nothing to do with the regulation of commercial activities, the boundaries between the spheres of federal and state authority would blur and political responsibility would become illusory. Id. at 1638 (emphasis added). 96 The above passage is likewise quoted with approval in Morrison. Id. at 1750. 97 And, since what we are concerned with is the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause—the power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes—commercial rather than simply any broadly understood concept of economic seems to be the appropriate concept. 98 Robbery is the activity regulated by the Hobbs Act, and we conclude that for these purposes robbery cannot be considered a commercial activity. Robbery does have an economic effect. But so, too, do not only all thefts of any kind from any victim but also, for example, virtually all criminal homicides. Moreover, the here relevant portion of the Hobbs Act, apart from simply specifying that the accused have committed a robbery which in any way or degree ... affects commerce (although not requiring any intention to have or foreknowledge of such an effect), says nothing whatever about the identity, status or activity (whether as being engaged in any sort of commercial activity or otherwise) of either the victim or the robber, and does not purport to in any way regulate the conduct of any commercial activity. What is relevant in this connection under Lopez and Morrison is not the effects of the conduct which the statute proscribes but whether the statute may fairly be said to regulate commercial activity. The here relevant portion of the Hobbs Act cannot. 99 We recognize that some decisions have taken the view that the Hobbs Act regulates the interference with economic activity by robbery, Peterson at 852, and for that reason alone an aggregation analysis is always per se appropriate and all that needs be shown is a depletion of assets. Id. (what is aggregated is the depletion of the interstate entity's assets by robbery). See also Gray at 1274 (Economic activity, or more precisely the infliction of economic harm, is at the heart of the Hobbs Act's prohibition on robbery). However, as noted, the here relevant portion of the Hobbs Act says nothing about the victim being an interstate entity. 33 And, we are aware of no Commerce Clause case in which the Supreme Court has applied the aggregation principle to a class of activities where contours of the class are not reasonably inferable from the language of the challenged statute or regulation. Moreover, the approach of allowing aggregation simply because of the infliction of economic harm (or the depletion of ... assets) equally supports making a federal offense of any crime (say any criminal homicide or assault producing serious bodily injury) so long as it causes economic harm or depletes economic resources and hence in some way or degree affects interstate commerce—in the same sense as does a fifty dollar robbery or a fifty cent shoplifting from a victim (whether an individual or a local retailer) who purchases items made in another state-and so long as the aggregate effect of all such crimes on interstate commerce is substantial. Yet, Morrison rejects the notion that Congress may regulate a crime simply because the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption. Id. at 1752-53. Lopez and Morrison reflect that such a limitation on the aggregation principle is necessary because [t]he Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, and [t]he regulation and punishment of intrastate violence that is not directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved in interstate commerce has always been the province of the States. Id. at 1754. Certainly, none of the instant robberies can be characterized as directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved in interstate commerce. 34 Further, the several decisions refusing to find the Hobbs Act applicable to most robberies of individuals under theories of deletion of assets and aggregation of the effect on interstate commerce of all such robberies likewise support our view in this respect. 35 It has been said that this distinction is justified because in general... businesses purchase on a larger scale than individuals. United States v. Boulahanis, 677 F.2d 586, 590 (7th Cir.1982). However, this justification is not persuasive because the here relevant portion of the Hobbs Act makes no distinction between the robberies it proscribes on the basis of whether the victim is a business (or is engaged in a commercial activity), and because virtually every consumer regularly expends considerable funds on the purchase of items originating out-of-state and there are many more consumers than businesses. Indeed, consumer spending is generally estimated to amount to two-thirds of the national economy. See also United States v. Thomas, 159 F.3d 296, 298 (7th Cir.1998) (since the aggregate effect of such robberies [of individuals] on commerce is non-trivial, those cases are in tension with the ones ... which insist on aggregation). Moreover, as previously noted, we are aware of no Supreme Court Commerce Clause decision applying the aggregation principle to a class of activities the contours of which are not reasonably inferable from the language of the challenged statute or regulation. Thus, the aggregation principle if applied to Hobbs Act prosecutions, would apply all robberies (of any personal property, from any victim, by any robber) which in any way or degree ... affect[s] commerce. 100 We turn now to the appropriate standards to determine whether in such a case the applicable Lopez category three substantially affects requirement can be met by aggregating the effects of all such robberies.
101 As previously observed, the aggregation principle has relevance only in Lopez category three cases, cases that are concerned only with regulation of intrastate conduct. As to such regulation, Lopez's explicit requirement that the regulated intrastate conduct not merely affect interstate commerce but that it do so substantially is obviously designed to insure that congressional power under the Commerce Clause is not wholly without meaningful limits and does not obliterate the distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, id. at 1634, so as to transform to a unitary system of government the constitutionally established federal system under which, among other things, there is no better example of the police power, which the Founders denied the National Government and reposed in the States, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims. Morrison at 1754. Yet if there are essentially no limits on use of the aggregation principle to satisfy the substantially requirement, then that requirement becomes virtually meaningless and wholly incapable of performing the function it is designed to serve, for the greater the breadth and generality of the regulatory net which Congress casts over intrastate conduct the more substantial will be the aggregated affect on interstate commerce of the total of all the intrastate conduct so regulated. Moreover, if the aggregation principle is applicable the courts have no power `to excise, as trivial, individual instances' of the class being aggregated. Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 1361, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 2022, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968)). 102 Although the Supreme Court has on several occasions sustained federal statutes on the aggregation theory, it has never applied or even referred to it in a Hobbs Act case (nor is anything in the Hobbs Act legislative history supportive of such an approach). Nor since Lopez and Morrison has the Court made any general analysis or explanation of the contours of the doctrine. 103 In United States v. Robinson, 119 F.3d 1205 (5th Cir.1997), we rejected an as-applied challenge to a Hobbs Act conviction which urged that under Lopez the evidence was insufficient because it showed only that the charged robberies had some, but not a substantial, effect on interstate commerce. 36 We rejected that contention, relying on the aggregation principle as reflected by cases such as Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 85 S.Ct. 377, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964) and Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964), held that  Lopez did not undermine this principle and relied in that connection on the Tenth Circuit's decision in United States v. Bolton, 68 F.3d 396 (1995). Robinson, 1214-15. 104 Subsequently, in United States v. Hickman, 151 F.3d 446 (5th Cir.1998) (panel opinion), 179 F.3d 230 (5th Cir.1999) (en banc), we again addressed the requisite interstate commerce connection respecting Hobbs Act convictions for several robberies of retail establishments. The Hickman panel affirmed the convictions, considering itself bound by Robinson, but expressed serious questions as to the propriety of applying the aggregation principle in that setting. 37 The en banc court noted that [b]y means of an equally divided en banc court, we affirm the counts of conviction, but no opinion for affirmance was issued. Hickman, 179 F.3d 230. Half the judges comprising the en banc court joined in a dissenting opinion by Judge Higginbotham urging reversal on the basis that, particularly in light of Lopez, the aggregation principle was not properly applicable to those Hobbs Act prosecutions. Id. 105 Given the intervening decision in Morrison we revisit that issue and now express our essential agreement with the conclusions and underlying reasoning of Judge Higginbotham's Hickman opinion. 38 As stated in that opinion: 106 We would hold that substantial effects upon interstate commerce may not be achieved by aggregating diverse, separate individual instances of intrastate activity where there is no rational basis for finding sufficient connections among them. Of course, Congress may protect, enhance, or restrict some particular interstate economic market, such as those in wheat, credit, minority travel, abortion service, illegal drugs, and the like, and Congress may regulate intrastate activity as part of a broader scheme. The Hobbs Act is not a regulation of any relevant interstate economic market, nor are there other rational connections among nationwide robberies that would entitle Congress to make federal crimes of them all. 107 The Hobbs Act does not target any class of product, process, or market, or indeed even commercial victims. It facially applies to any robbery, or its attempt, of any person or entity.... The Hobbs Act offers no `regulatory scheme' which `could be undercut' if individual robberies were not aggregated.... Thus, putting aside robberies as part of an effort to regulate particular interstate markets such as guns, drugs, or organized crime syndicates, a local robbery spree can be within Congress's power only if it by itself has a substantial effect. Id. at 231. 108 ... 109 Where Congress has sought to regulate —protect, enhance, or restrict— some particular market such as wheat, credit, minority travel, or abortion service, it has pointed the way to a rational aggregation test. It has identified those things that affect that market, things which if not all subject to the regulation would erode the effort. Intrastate production and sales can be aggregated, because the prices of goods and services are determined in interstate markets. If, for example, the federal government enacts a price control to ensure sufficient income for producers, it will be thwarted if consumers switch to buying goods in intrastate commerce or produce the goods themselves. Because the instances of economic activity are intimately connected and in the aggregate substantially affect commerce, Congress can regulate such activity. Id. at 233. 110 We also observe that not only does the Hobbs Act not target any class of product, process or market or even commercial victims, but it has also been held to apply to robbery (or extortion) which adversely affects ill egal commerce 39 as well as to that which beneficially affects commerce. 40 111 The analysis in the Hickman en banc dissent fully comports with the following crucial passage in Lopez explaining the Court's refusal to sustain 18 U.S.C. § 922(q) under an aggregation theory, viz: 112 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. Id. at 1631 (emphasis added). 113 Where the Supreme Court has applied aggregation to uphold federal regulation of intrastate conduct against constitutional challenge under the Commerce Clause, there has always been a rational basis to find sufficient interrelationship or commonality of effect on interstate commerce among the discrete intrastate instances regulated and between them and a scheme of regulation (protection, enhancement or restriction) of some particular interstate market or activity such that the regulation of those intrastate activities can rationally be viewed as necessary to the effectiveness of or a meaningfully supporting part of the scheme of regulation of that particular interstate activity or market. 114 We now turn to the most frequently cited of these cases. 115 Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), involved a farmer who owned and operated a small farm ... maintaining a herd of dairy cattle, selling milk, raising poultry, and selling poultry and eggs and raising a small acreage of winter wheat. Id. at 84. He sold part of the wheat, fed part to his poultry and cattle, some of which were sold, used some for seeding and some in making flour for home consumption. In the year in question his wheat available for marketing quota under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 as amended was 11.1 acres but he harvested and threshed 23 acres and was penalized 49 cents a bushel on the 239 bushels harvested and threshed from the 11.9 acres of excess acreage. Id. at 83, 84, 86. 41 The Court assumed that this excess was consumed on the farm, but nevertheless, and despite the comparatively minimal quantity, sustained the penalty as against Commerce Clause challenge, stating, inter alia, 116 The effect of consumption of homegrown wheat on interstate commerce is due to the fact that it constitutes the most variable factor in the disappearance of the wheat crop. 117 ... 118 One of the primary purposes of the Act in question was to increase the market price of wheat and to that end to limit the volume thereof that could affect the market. It can hardly be denied that a factor of such volume and variability as home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. This may arise because being in marketable condition such wheat overhangs the market and if induced by rising prices tends to flow into the market and check price increases. But if we assume that it is never marketed, it supplies a need of the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce .... Congress may properly have considered that wheat consumed on the farm where grown if wholly outside the scheme of regulation would have a substantial effect in defeating and obstructing its purpose to stimulate trade therein at increased prices. 119 ... 120 Control of total supply, upon which the whole statutory plan is based, depends upon control of individual supply. Id. at 90-91 (emphasis added). 121 We note that Lopez describes Wickard as perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate commerce. Lopez at 1630. Clearly, however, the factors that brought Wickard under the aggregation principle are absent in the present character of prosecution. In Wickard market forces related the effect of the individual instances of regulated intrastate conduct to each other and to the scheme of regulation of the particular interstate market, namely sustaining the price at which wheat was sold in interstate commerce; moreover, the diverse instances of regulated intrastate conduct in Wickard each had a similar effect on the regulatory scheme, that is each had the same tendency to affect the interstate price of wheat in the same way. 122 Likewise, in United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110, 62 S.Ct. 523, 86 L.Ed. 726 (1942), the Court upheld a regulation prescribing the minimum price to be paid producers for all milk marketed in the Chicago area, approximately forty percent of which came from out-of-state, rejecting the contention that the regulations could not under the Commerce Clause be applied to a local milk marketer all of whose business was entirely intrastate. The Court explained: 123 ... the marketing of intrastate milk which competes with that shipped interstate would tend seriously to break down price regulation of the latter. 124 ... 125 We conclude that the national power to regulate the price of milk moving interstate into the Chicago, Illinois, marketing area, extends to such control over intrastate transactions there as is necessary and appropriate to make the regulation of the interstate commerce effective; and that it includes authority to make like regulations for the marketing of intrastate milk whose sale and competition with the interstate milk affects its price structure so as in turn to affect adversely the Congressional regulation. Id. at 527. 126 The decisions in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964), and Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 85 S.Ct. 377, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964), sustained under the Commerce Clause the public accommodation provisions of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applicable to hotels and restaurants respectively. In doing so the Court in each case pointed to the overwhelming evidence before Congress in its consideration of the legislation that racial discrimination by hotels and restaurants impeded minority interstate travel. In Heart of Atlanta the Court noted that the Committee Reports and testimony before Congress reflected that: 127 [O]ur people have become increasingly mobile with millions of people of all races traveling from State to State; that Negroes in particular have been the subject of discrimination in transient accommodations, having to travel great distances to secure the same; that often they have been unable to obtain accommodations and have had to call upon friends to put them up overnight, ... and that these conditions had become so acute as to require the listing of available lodging for Negroes in a special guidebook ... that this uncertainty [of the Negro traveler finding lodging] stemming from racial discrimination had the effect of discouraging travel on the part of a substantial portion of the Negro community. This was the conclusion not only of the Under Secretary of Commerce but also of the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency who wrote the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that it was his `belief that air commerce is adversely affected by the denial to a substantial segment of the traveling public of adequate and desegregated public accommodations.' ... We shall not burden this opinion with further details since the voluminous testimony presents overwhelming evidence that discrimination by hotels and motels impedes interstate travel.  Id. at 355 (emphasis added). 42 128 The Court went on to hold that interstate travel was interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause and that accordingly Congress's commerce power embraced the power to remove the impediment to interstate travel posed by race based refusal to serve hotel customers. Id. at 355-360. McClung similarly placed great emphasis on the same consideration, id. at 381-82, 43 and goes on to hold that the fact that one restaurant's activities may have but a de minimus effect on interstate commerce was not significant, relying on Wickard. McClung at 382. 129 In Heart of Atlanta and McClung the discrete local activities regulated—the race based refusal of diverse hotels and restaurants to serve minority customers—each had a similar effect on a particular interstate market or activity, namely impeding minority interstate travel, an obstruction to interstate commerce which the statute was designed to remove. 130 Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968), 44 rejected Commerce Clause challenges to the 1961 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act adopting the enterprise concept extending coverage to include not only employees personally engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce, but also all those employed by an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce. The Court noted that in the original act Congress had found that substandard wages and excessive hours, when imposed on employees of a company shipping goods into other States, gave the exporting company an advantage over companies in the importing States and that this had the undesirable effect of driving down labor conditions in the importing States. Id. at 2020. 45 The Court went on to state: 131 When a company does an interstate business, its competition with companies elsewhere is affected by all its significant labor costs, not merely by the wages and hours of those employees who have physical contact with the goods in question. Id. at 2021. 132 Wirtz also noted that Congress had found that substandard labor conditions tended to labor disputes and strikes, that when such strife disrupted businesses involved in interstate commerce, the flow of goods in commerce was itself affected, id. at 2021, and that this applied equally to substandard labor conditions of all employees of an enterprise engaged in commerce, not merely those personally so engaged. Id. at 2021-22. Wirtz goes on to state that under the Commerce Clause courts could not excise, as trivial, individual instances falling within a rationally defined class of activities, citing Wickard. Wirtz at 2022. 133 The intrastate activities regulated in Wirtz (wages of employees of an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for or acquisition of goods directly in interstate commerce even where the employee personally was not so engaged) were by market forces interrelated and related to interstate commerce and to the regulated interstate market in wages. Moreover, each of those intrastate activities had the same character of effect on the statutory scheme of regulation—as each proscribed substandard wage tended, by market forces, to lower wages generally and to foster industrial discord, contrary to and tending to undermine the statutory scheme for maintaining wages of employees of enterprises engaged in interstate commerce (or the production of goods for or acquisition of goods directly in interstate commerce) and avoiding the disruption of interstate commerce incident to industrial strife resulting from substandard wages. 134 In Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971), the Court sustained Perez's conviction for making an extortionate extension of credit contrary to the provisions of Title II of the Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968, rejecting the contention that the statute was unconstitutional as not requiring proof that the particular transaction affected interstate commerce. The Court observed that [p]etitioner is one of the species commonly known as `loan sharks' which Congress found are in large part under the control of `organized crime,' citing congressional findings under Title II that [o]rganized crime is interstate and international in character, that [a] substantial part of the income of organized crime is generated by extortionate credit transactions, and that [e]xtortionate credit transactions are carried on to a considerable extent in interstate and foreign commerce and through the means and instrumentalities of such commerce and [e]ven where ... purely intrastate in character... directly affect interstate and foreign commerce. Id. at 1358 & n. 1. It also noted evidence before Congress that loan sharking was the second largest source of revenue for organized crime and is controlled by organized criminal syndicates, that through loan sharking the organized underworld has obtained control of legitimate businesses, including securities brokerages and banks, id. at 1362, and concluded by stating that loan sharking in its national setting is one way organized interstate crime ... syphons funds from numerous localities to finance its national operations. Id. at 1362-63. 135 The Court likewise noted that [t]here was ample evidence showing petitioner was a `loan shark' who used the threat of violence as a method of collection, id. at 1358, and [i]n the setting of the present case there is a tie-in between local loan sharks and interstate crime. Id. at 1367. 46 136 In upholding the conviction the Perez Court relied on Wickard, Wrightwood Dairy Co., Heart of Atlanta, McClung, and Wirtz for the principle that the class of activities is the proper measure of the required relationship to interstate commerce and that courts would not `excise, as trivial, individual instances' of the class. Perez at 1360-61. 137 Plainly, Perez dealt with a national market in credit, in which individual instances interact with each other by virtue of market forces. More significantly, perhaps, it dealt with a statute attempting to regulate a particular interstate activity, that of organized interstate crime, which was financed by the both local and interstate loan sharking which it controlled. Id. at 1362-63. 47 Moreover, Perez also relied on the principle that `when it is necessary in order to prevent an evil to make the law embrace more than the precise thing to be prevented it may do so' (quoting Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 47 S.Ct. 629, 71 L.Ed. 1036 (1927)), and then observed in the present case there is a tie-in between local loan sharks and interstate crime. Id. at 1362. This would appear to invoke the rule that where the same kind of trafficking is carried on both interstate and intrastate Congress in preventing the interstate trafficking may also proscribe the intrastate trafficking where, as a practical matter (for reasons such as the fungibility of the particular commodities or the like), it is necessary to regulate the intrastate trafficking in order to effectively regulate the interstate trafficking. See, e.g., United States v. Lopez, 459 F.2d 949, 951-53 (5th Cir.1972). 48 138 The present case does not involve the targeting of any particular interstate market or activity, and it is evident that the proscription of robberies which do not have the requisite effect on interstate commerce is in no sense necessary to effective regulation of those that do. 139 We finally turn in this connection to Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, 452 U.S. 264, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981) ( Hodel v. Virginia ) and Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U.S. 314, 101 S.Ct. 2376, 69 L.Ed.2d 40 (1981), in each of which the Court rejected Commerce Clause challenges by various coal producers to certain provisions of the Surface Mining and Reclamation Control Act of 1977. The challenged provisions constituted a complex regulatory scheme governing surface coal mining operations, requiring, among other things, land restoration, use of dams, spoil disposal and the like. The Court noted congressional findings that surface mining adversely affects interstate commerce by, inter alia, destroying the utility of land for commercial, industrial, agricultural, forestry and other purposes, causing erosion and contributing to flooding, polluting water and otherwise. Hodel v. Virginia at 2361. The Court observed that coal is a commodity that moves in interstate commerce. Here Congress rationally determined that regulation of surface coal mining is necessary to protect interstate commerce from adverse effects that may result from that activity and that the power conferred by the Commerce Clause [is] broad enough to permit congressional regulation of activities causing air or water pollution, or other environmental hazards that may have effects in more than one state. Id. at 2363. Hodel v. Indiana focused on the prime farmland provisions of the Act, holding that Congress had a rational basis for finding that surface coal mining on prime farmland affects interstate commerce in agricultural products. Id. at 2384. Both decisions note that federal standards were appropriate to insure that the forces of interstate competition in the coal industry would not undermine the maintenance of adequate standards. Thus Hodel v. Virginia states: 140 the Act responds to a congressional finding that nationwide `surface mining and reclamation standards are essential in order to insure that competition in interstate commerce among sellers of coal produced in different States will not be used to undermine the ability of the several States to improve and maintain adequate standards on coal mining operations within their borders.' ... The prevention of this sort of destructive interstate competition is a traditional role for congressional action under the Commerce Clause. Id. at 2363. 141 Hodel v. Indiana expresses essentially the same thought. 49 A footnote called for at the conclusion of the portion of the Hodel v. Indiana opinion dealing with the Commerce Clause states: 142 Appellees contend that a number of the specific provisions challenged in this case cannot be shown to be related to the congressional goal of preventing adverse effects on interstate commerce. This claim, even if correct, is beside the point. A complex regulatory program such as established by the Act can survive a Commerce Clause challenge without a showing that every single facet of the program is independently and directly related to a valid congressional goal. It is enough that the challenged provisions are an integral part of the regulatory program and that the regulatory scheme when considered as a whole satisfies this test. Id. at 2386 n. 17 (emphasis added) (citing Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung ). 143 Thus the Hodel cases deal with a complex regulatory program of a particular industry engaged in interstate commerce designed to control a particular set of interstate effects of certain practices of that industry. The regulated instances of intrastate conduct are related to each other and to the particular scheme of regulation of interstate commerce and effects thereon by the forces of the interstate market in the particular regulated industry. And the regulated instances of intrastate conduct also all either have the same character of effect on interstate commerce or are an integral or essential part of the overall complex regulatory scheme governing particular businesses engaged in interstate commerce such that unless the covered intrastate activities were regulated the regulatory scheme would be undercut. 144 It is also significant that in all the above discussed Supreme Court aggregation cases the intrastate conduct being regulated was conduct forming a part of the operation of a wholly or partially commercial enterprise (whether owned and operated by an individual or some legal entity). The regulations governed aspects of how such a commercial (or partially commercial) enterprise must operate, what it must or must not do in its operations. See Morrison, 120 S.Ct. at 1750 n. 4 ([I]n every case where we have sustained federal regulation under Wickard's aggregation principle, the regulated activity was of an apparent commercial character.). 145 We recognize that language in Russell v. United States, 471 U.S. 858, 105 S.Ct. 2455, 85 L.Ed.2d 829 (1985), a prosecution under the federal arson statute, 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), suggests that a broader—indeed virtually unlimited—application of the aggregation principle is constitutionally permissible. 50 But the only issue in Russell was one of statutory construction; no constitutional or Commerce Clause claim was presented to the Supreme Court. Russell involved the owner of a two unit apartment building which was being rented to tenants at the time he attempted to destroy it by fire; he earned rental income from it and treated it as business property for tax purposes. Id. at 2456. 51 He unsuccessfully contended before the Supreme Court, as he had in the District Court, 563 F.Supp. 1085 (N.D.Ill.1983), and in the Court of Appeals, 738 F.2d 825 (7th Cir.1984), that the building was not commercial or business property, and therefore was not capable of being the subject of an offense under section 844(i). Id. at 2456. In the Supreme Court he presented only an issue of statutory construction and expressly disclaimed any constitutional argument, his Brief For Petitioner there stating: 146  Mennuti [ United States v. Mennuti, 639 F.2d 107, 2d Cir.1981, the case on which he principally relied] does not hold, nor does petitioner contend, that Congress could not have drafted a statute encompassing virtually every building in the land, had it chosen to do so. Thus, this case does not present a constitutional challenge to congressional power under the Commerce Clause. It is our contention that, as held in Mennuti, the statute that Congress did pass, 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), as explicated by the House Judiciary Committee Report referred to above, does not cover a building used as a dwelling by a tenant of the owner, even though interstate utilities may have been used in the building. Id. at 11 (emphasis added; footnote omitted). 52 147 We also note that section 844(i) applies only to property that is active[ly] employ[ed] for commercial purposes, Jones, 120 S.Ct. at 1910, while the here relevant prong of the Hobbs Act is in no way analogously limited but rather applies regardless of whether or not the victim is engaged in any character of commercial activity. We conclude that Russell does not resolve the Commerce Clause aggregation issue as applied to this character of Hobbs Act prosecution. 148 We recognize that substantial for purposes of Lopez category three has a qualitative as well as a quantitative aspect, though those two aspects are somewhat interrelated rather than being entirely independent of each other. Limits on the aggregation principle, necessary to give meaning to substantial so as to preserve the distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, should thus take into account both quantitative and qualitative considerations. We conclude that the limits we have outlined do so notwithstanding that their most obvious focus may be quantitative. To the extent that there is a meaningful, rational basis to aggregate, then the aggregated quantitative effect on interstate commerce tends to qualitatively justify viewing the matter as truly national rather than truly local. Conversely, that the regulated category three intrastate conduct is not a commercial activity but is rather essentially the suppression of violent crime is a qualitative consideration pointing towards the regulation being of a truly local nature unless there is a meaningful and rational basis for aggregation. There is no sufficient rational basis to aggregate the effects on interstate commerce of any of the four individual prototypically local crimes of violence here prosecuted with the effects on interstate commerce of all the undifferentiated mass of robberies covered by the Hobbs Act's general proscription of any and all robberies that in any way or degree ... affect[] commerce.