Court Opinion

ID: 9429100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:39.444047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.051713
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
concurring.
While I join the Court’s opinion, a complete explanation of my appraisal of the case requires these additional comments about the larger perspective in which I view the underlying issues.
HH
In final analysis, we are construing the scope of the power granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It is important to remember that this Clause was the Framers’ response to the central problem that gave rise to the Constitution itself. As I have previously noted, Justice Rutledge described the origins and purpose of the Commerce Clause in these words:
“If any liberties may be held more basic than others, they are the great and indispensable democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment. But it was not *245to assure them that the Constitution was framed and adopted. Only later were they added, by popular demand. It was rather to secure freedom of trade, to break down the barriers to its free flow, that the Annapolis Convention was called, only to adjourn with a view to Philadelphia. Thus the generating source of the Constitution lay in the rising volume of restraints upon commerce which the Confederation could not check. These were the proximate cause of our national existence down to today.
“As evils are wont to do, they dictated the character and scope of their own remedy. This lay specifically in the commerce clause. No prohibition of trade barriers as among the states could have been effective of its own force or by trade agreements. It had become apparent that such treaties were too difficult to negotiate and the process of securing them was too complex for this method to give the needed relief. Power adequate to make and enforce the prohibition was required. Hence, the necessity for creating an entirely new scheme of government.
“. . . So by a stroke as bold as it proved successful, they founded a nation, although they had set out only to find a way to reduce trade restrictions. So also they solved the particular problem causative of their historic action, by introducing the commerce clause in the new structure of power.” W. Rutledge, A Declaration of Legal Faith 25-26 (1947), quoted in United States v. Stasczuk, 517 F. 2d 53, 58 (CA7) (en banc), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 837 (1975).1
*246There have been occasions when the Court has given a miserly construction to the Commerce Clause.2 But as the needs of a dynamic and constantly expanding national economy have changed, this Court has construed the Commerce Clause to reflect the intent of the Framers of the Constitution — to confer a power on the National Government ade*247quate to discharge its central mission. In this process the Court has repeatedly repudiated cases that had narrowly construed the Clause.3 The development of judicial doctrine has accommodated the transition from a purely local, to a regional, and ultimately to a national economy.4 Today, of course, our economy is merely a part of an international mechanism no single nation could possibly regulate.
In the statutes challenged in this case and in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976), Congress exercised its power to regulate the American labor market. There was a time when this Court would have denied that Congress had any such power,5 but that chapter in our judi*248cial history has long been closed.6 Today, there should be universal agreement on the proposition that Congress has ample power to regulate the terms and conditions of employment throughout the economy. Because of the. interdependence of the segments of the economy and the importance and magnitude of government employment, a comprehensive congressional policy to regulate the labor market may require coverage of both public and private sectors to be effective.
Congress may not, of course, transcend specific limitations on its exercise of the commerce power that are imposed by other provisions of the Constitution. But there is no limitation in the text of the Constitution that is even arguably applicable to this case. The only basis for questioning the federal statute at issue here is the pure judicial fiat found in this Court’s opinion in National League of Cities v. Usery. Neither the Tenth Amendment,7 nor any other provision of the Constitution, affords any support for that judicially constructed limitation on the scope of the federal power granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause.8 In my opinion, that *249decision must be placed in the same category as United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1 (1895), Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1918), and Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238 (1936) — cases whose subsequent rejection is now universally regarded as proper. I think it so plain that National League of Cities not only was incorrectly decided, but also is inconsistent with the central purpose of the Constitution itself, that it is not entitled to the deference that *250the doctrine of stare decisis ordinarily commands for this Court’s precedents. Notwithstanding my respect for that doctrine, I believe that the law would be well served by a prompt rejection of National League of Cities’ modern embodiment of the spirit of the Articles of Confederation.
II
My conviction that Congress had ample power to enact this statute, as well as the statute at issue in National League of Cities, is unrelated to my views about the merits of either piece of legislation. As I intimated in my dissent in that case, I believe that federal regulation that enhances the minimum price of labor inevitably reduces the number of jobs available to people who are ready, willing, and able to engage in productive work — and thereby aggravates rather than ameliorates our unemployment problems. I also believe, contrary to the popular view, that the burdens imposed on the national economy by legislative prohibitions against mandatory retirement on account of age exceed the potential benefits. My personal views on such matters are, however, totally irrelevant to the judicial task I am obligated to perform. There is nothing novel about this point — it has been made repeatedly by more learned and more experienced judges.9 But it is important to emphasize this obvious limit on the proper exercise of judicial power, one that is sometimes overlooked by those who criticize our work product.
The question in this case is purely one of constitutional power. In exercising its power to regulate the national market for the services of individuals — either by prescribing the minimum price for such services or by prohibiting employment discrimination on account of age — may Congress regulate both the public sector and the private sector of that mar*251ket, or must it confine its regulation to the private sector? If the power is to be adequate to enable the National Government to perform its central mission, that question can have only one answer.

 Justice Rutledge’s view of our Nation’s history has been widely shared. For example, in 1934 in an article in the Harvard Law Review, Robert L. Stern wrote:
“The Constitutional Convention was called because the Articles of Confederation had not given the Federal Government any power to regulate • commerce. This defect proved to be so serious that the Virginia General Assembly appointed commissioners to meet with commissioners of other *246states to ‘take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situation and trade of the said states; to consider how far the uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several states such an act relative to this great object. . . .’ Representatives of but five states met at Annapolis in September, 1786. They determined that they could do nothing by themselves, and that the adequate protection of commerce required a complete revision of the structure of government. Accordingly, they recommended that a convention be called for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and Congress thereupon asked the various states to send delegates to Philadelphia in May, 1787.
. . In view of the fact that the need for centralized commercial regulation was universally recognized as the primary reason for preparing a new constitution, the Convention would not have been likely to have meant the commerce clause to have a narrow or restrictive meaning.” Stern, That Commerce Which Concerns More States Than One, 47 Harv. L. Rev. 1385, 1337, 1340-1341 (1934) (footnotes omitted).
See also 1 A. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall 310-312 (1916); G. Gunther, Constitutional Law 127 (9th ed. 1975) (“The poor condition of American commerce and the proliferating trade rivalries between the states were the immediate provocations for the calling of the Constitutional Convention”); C. Swisher, American Constitutional Development 25-27 (2d ed. 1954); Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 224 (1824) (opinion of Johnson, J.) (the “conflict of commercial regulations, destructive to the harmony of the States . . . was the immediate cause, that led to the forming of a convention”).

 See, e. g., Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20-21 (1888) (manufacturing is not subject to the commerce power of Congress); United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1,12-16 (1895) (monopoly in manufacturing is not subject to the commerce power); Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, 178-179 (1908) (connection between interstate commerce and membership in a labor union insufficient to authorize Congress to make it a crime for an interstate carrier to discharge an employee because of union membership); Hammer v. Dagenkart, 247 U. S. 251, 276 (1918) (Congress has no power *247to prohibit interstate transportation of goods produced with child labor); Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 308-310 (1936) (commerce power does not extend to regulation of wages, hours, and working conditions of coal miners).

 Compare Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U. S. 495, 524-525 (1922), with Hopkins v. United States, 171 U. S. 578, 592-598 (1898); Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U. S. 515, 557 (1937), with Employers’ Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 498 (1908); Sunshine Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381, 393-394 (1940), with Carter v. Carter Coal Co., supra, at 297-310; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 115-117 (1941), with Hammer v. Dagenhart, supra, at 269-277; United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533, 542-553 (1944), with New York Life Insurance Co. v. Deer Lodge County, 231 U. S. 495, 502-512 (1913); Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S. 219, 229-235 (1948), with United States v. E. C. Knight Co., supra, at 12-16.

 See, e. g., Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 118-125 (1942) (Congress may constitutionally apply wheat marketing quota to wheat grown wholly for consumption on the farm, because of interdependence of national market); Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., supra, at 229-235 (Congress has power under Commerce Clause to prohibit price fixing by purchasers of beet sugar from growers in same State); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 249-262 (1964) (Congress may prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation affecting commerce); Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 154-155 (1971) (Commerce Clause gives Congress power to regulate local loan sharking because it is in a class of activities that has an impact on interstate commerce).

 See, e. g., Employers’ Liability Cases, supra, at 496-499; Adair v. United States, supra, at 176-180; Hammer v. Dagenhart, supra, at 271-275; Carter v. Carter Coal Co., supra, at 303-304.

 See United States v. Darby, supra, at 113-124.

 “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 10.
As Chief Justice Stone wrote in United States v. Darby, supra, at 124: “The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. . . . From the beginning and for many years the amendment has been construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly adapted to the permitted end.”

 This, of course, is not an original observation. See Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion for the Court in Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, at 196-197:
“It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution. These are expressed in plain terms, and do not affect the questions which arise in this case, or which have been discussed at the bar. If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign na*249tions, and among the several States, is vested in congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the constitution of the United States. The wisdom and the discretion of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances,... the sole restraints on which they have relied, to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments.”
These words carry special weight in view of the fact that, more than 36 years earlier, Chief Justice Marshall had been a delegate at the Virginia ratifying convention and had participated in the crucial debates regarding the proposed Constitution. He was thus fully conscious of the dramatic contrast between the Articles of Confederation, which had declared explicitly that “[e]ach State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,” Art. 2, and the new Constitution, which contained not a word respecting the sovereignty, freedom, and independence of the States, but rather conveyed an unequivocal message in the Supremacy Clause, Art. VI, cl. 2. The role of the States in the Confederation was repeatedly contrasted with their role in the proposed Constitution, both by supporters and by opponents of ratification. See 3 J. Elliot, Debates on the Federal Constitution 129 (1891 ed.) (James Madison, speaking in support: “A government which relies on thirteen independent sovereignties for the means of its existence, is a solecism in theory and a mere nullity in practice. . . . The effect, sir, cannot be changed without a removal of the cause”); id., at 22 (Patrick Henry, speaking in opposition: “Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states”). The question of authority, of course, was resolved by the ratification.

 See, e. g., Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 569 (1967) (Stewart, J., concurring); Adair v. United States, 208 U. S., at 191-192 (Holmes, J., dissenting); Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting).