Garrett and the Spending Clause

[earl maltz]

I  should have stated clearly that  Rehnquist and O'Connor  support broad
federal regulation of PRIVATE activity.  The basic point is  that
(constrary to the assertion of Lynne Henderson)  Rehnquist and O'Connor do
not claim that the federal government should be weak in general terms--only
that the exercise of federal power should not be inconsistent with what
they see as the sovereign status of the state governments.  Given that most
economic activity in the country is private, Rehnquist and O'Connor's
conception of federal power is "weak" only in comparison with  the standard
Warren Court vision of unlimited federal power.

I thank David Cruz for the opportunity to clarify my previous impreceise post.

At 09:36 PM 8/20/01 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, earl maltz wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>> Indeed, Rehnquist and O'Connor in particular have consistently voted to
>> uphold economic regulations  that infringe on traditional areas of local
>> concern.  See, for example, Hodel and FERC v. Mississippi.  Lopez and
>> Morrison limit the power of the feds in this regard only very marginally.
>> [snip]
>
>Umm ... this does not appear to reflect the notions of consistency that I
>studied when I was a graduate student in logic.  What happened to their
>votes signing onto Justice Powell's dissent in Garcia v. San Antonio
>Metropolitan Transit Authority (not to mention Rehnquist's opinion for
>the Court in National League of Cities)?  Doesn't the Fair Labor Standards
>Act count as an economic regulation?
>
>-David B. Cruz, USC Law (Cal.)
>