Posted by Orin Kerr:
Key Sections in Gonzales v. Raich:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_06_05-2005_06_11.shtml#1118072212
I'm reading through the opinions in Gonzales v. Raich, and I thought I
would post the key sections as I go. Justice Stevens' majority opinion
is [1]here. The key sections:
As we stated in Wickard [Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 128�129 (1942)],
�even if appellee�s activity be local and though it may not be
regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached
by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on
interstate commerce.� Id., at 125. We have never required Congress
to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that
the total incidence� � of a practice poses a threat to a national
market, it may regulate the entire class. See Perez, 402 U. S., at
154�155 (quoting Westfall v. United States, 274 U. S. 256, 259
(1927) (�[W]hen 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�)). In this vein, we have reiterated that when � �a general
regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de
minimis character of individual instances arising under that
statute is of no consequence.� � E.g., Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558
(emphasis deleted) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196,
n. 27 (1968)).
Stevens found this case on all fours with Wickard:
Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely
intrastate activity that is not itself �commercial,� in that it is
not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate
that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the
interstate market in that commodity.
The similarities between this case and Wickard are
striking.
Applying the general principles to this case, Stevens concluded:
Given the enforcement difficulties that attend distinguishing
between marijuana cultivated locally and marijuana grown elsewhere,
21 U. S. C. §801(5), and concerns about diversion into illicit
channels, we have no difficulty concluding that Congress had a
rational basis for believing that failure to regulate the
intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana would leave a
gaping hole in the CSA. Thus, as in Wickard, when it enacted
comprehensive legislation to regulate the interstate market in a
fungible commodity, Congress was acting well within its authority
to �make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper� to �regulate
Commerce . . . among the several States.� U. S. Const., Art. I,
§8. That the regulation ensnares some purely intrastate activity
is of no moment.
The opinion distinguishes Lopez and Morrison:
Unlike those at issue in Lopez and Morrison, the activities
regulated by the CSA are quintessentially economic. Economics�
refers to �the production, distribution, and consumption of
commodities.� Webster�s Third New International Dictionary 720
(1966). The CSA is a statute that regulates the production,
distribution, and consumption of commodities for which there is an
established, and lucrative, interstate market. Prohibiting the
intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of commerce is a
rational (and commonly utilized) means of regulating commerce in
that product.
References
1. http://wid.ap.org/scotus/pdf/03-1454P.ZO.pdf
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