Court Opinion

ID: 9489670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:21:10.375688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:39.303260
License: Public Domain

DOUMAR, Senior District Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the Court's result. I write separately, however, to express my unease with the assertion of federal jurisdiction in this ease.
In this case, the defendant participated in the firebombing of a townhouse in which the intended victim resided. The intended victim did not own the townhouse; instead, she personally leased her residence from a private entity. Because of her low income, a county-level housing agency, the Loudoun County Office of Housing Services, determined that she was eligible for and in fact provided her with a partial rent subsidy. This county agency implemented the assistance program pursuant to funding provided by and through a state agency, the Virginia Housing Development Authority, which executed a separate agreement with the landlord obligating the agency to pay part of her rent. The Virginia Housing Development Authority, in turn, obtains funding for this particular program from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development pursuant to Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937. See 42 U.S.C. § 1437f. Section S was enacted "{fjor the purpose of aiding lower-income families in obtaining a decent place to live. . . ." Id. This lengthy chain, it is said, supports the assertion of federal jurisdiction to punish the defendant in this case based on the townhouse being "used by" a "United States ... agency" or an "organization receiving Federal financial assistance." See 18 U.S.C. § 844.
In any difficult case,
[wile start with first principles: The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. As James Madison wrote, "[t]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." This constitutionally mandated division of au- *147thority “was adopted by the Framers to ensure protection of our fundamental liberties.”
United States v. Lopez, - U.S.-,-, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1626, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (citations omitted).
Of course, the Supreme Court in Lopez identified only the constitutional limitations on Congress to use the Commerce Clause to criminalize conduct traditionally regulated by the States; thus, perhaps Lopez directly supports nothing in the case before this Court. Nevertheless, “[t]he Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Lopez marks a revolutionary and long overdue revival of the doctrine that the federal government is one of limited and enumerated powers.” Steven G. Calabresi, “A Government of Limited and Enumerated Powers”: In Defense of United States v. Lopez, 94 Mich.L.Rev. 752 (1995).
Whether the defendant in this case violated 18 U.S.C. § 844(f) and whether that statute is constitutional as applied are very close questions. I concur in the Court’s affirmative answers because the organization subsidizing a portion of the intended victim’s rent does receive federal assistance and because one could say that the organization was “using” the townhouse. I must comment, however, that once we accept the reasoning necessary to permit this perhaps tolerable extension of federal jurisdiction, little is left to stop the intolerable. What local or state agency does not receive some form of federal assistance? The question is rhetorical because we know that federal money eventually filters down to nearly every public entity and organization, from the suburban elementary school to the rural county sheriffs office to the urban family-planning clinic. Once that is understood, we realize that the transition from the federalist “what few things the federal government may do” to the centralist “what few things the federal government may not do” is now complete.
I caution against blind acceptance of incessant federal invasion into spheres which should be occupied by the States. Perhaps soon the Supreme Court will continue the process begun in Lopez, and reinvigorate out-system of federalism sufficiently so that the extension of federal jurisdiction permitted by this Court today will be acceptable no longer. I urge the Supreme Court to do so. Based on law existing today, however, I reluctantly concur.