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Scope of Federal Powers III

• Taxing Power (637-643).
• The Spending “Power” (643-645).
• United States v. Butler (645-648).
• South Dakota v. Dole (648-656).
• New York v. United States (657-670).
• Printz v. United States (670-683)

 

Baiely v. Drexel Furniture Co. (The Child Labor Tax Case)

The Drexel Furniture Company was established on November 10, 1903 in Drexel, North Carolina. B

By 1968, after several acquisitions, the company became known as the Drexel Heritage Furnishings, Inc. It is still known as that today.

Here is a photograph form 1906 of the Drexel Furniture Company in  Drexel, North Carolina that employed child laborers.

 

The company’s first plant burned in 1906.  The plant pictured was built in two weeks after the fire and was identical to the first one. The plant consisted of two buildings. In 1917, the building got electricity.  An addition was added in 1918.

 

Steward Machine Company v. Davis (1937)

The Steward Machine Company, based in Birmingham, Alabama, challenged the constitutionality of the social security tax cases. The company was founded in 1900. Here is one of their first facilities.

I think this photograph is dated February 19, 1900, but it is too blurry to make out for sure.

Here is their modern-day image.

United States v. Butler

This is President Roosevelt signing the Agricultural Adjustment Act into law.

And some cartoons.

South Dakota v. Dole

This case involved Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole, whose husband (Viagra spokesman) Bob Dole, was a long-time Senator from Kansas, and Republican nominee for President in 1996.

Printz v. United States

The case of Printz v. United States was brought by two sheriffs. Sheriff/Coroner Jay Printz of Ravali County, Montana, and Sheriff Richard Mack of Graham County, Arizona. Both were the Chief Law Enforcement Officers (CLEO), subject to the background-check mandate of the Brady Act’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Printz was represented by Stephen Halbrook, and Mack represented by David Hardy.

I’ve spoken to both plaintiffs, and they are very interesting officers–they certainly look the part of CLEOs. Mack insists that the case should be called Mack v. United States, because his name came first alphabetically (docket numbers be damned!).

Following this case, Jay Printz would serve as Sheriff until 1999, and then became a member of the Board of the National Rifle Association. Richard Mack ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Arizona and Texas.

From left to right: Atty. Dave Hardy; Sheriff Richard Mack, Arizona; Sheriff Sam Frank, Vermont; Atty. Stephen Hallbrook; Sheriff Printz, Montana.

Sheriff Richard Mack at the Utah Capitol.

Stephen Halbrook arguing Printz v. United States. Note Justice Scalia has a hipsteriffic beard.

More pictures of Sheriff Printz

 

 

Somehow a monkey in Bali managed to take a GoPro camera, take a selfie, and open it up and remove the battery (you can hear the owner screaming “No, no, no monkey, it’s a f*cking $500 camera). Of course, who owns the copyright to this video?

Like the macaque that took a selfie.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was introduced in the House of Representatives by a young right-wing zealot named Rep. Chuck Schumer. It passed the House by a voice vote in the Democrat-controlled House on May 11, 1993. It passed the Senate by a vote of 97-3. It was then signed into law by President Clinton.

The key provision of RFRA at issue in Hobby Lobby provides, in part:

“Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”

Arizona SB 1062, dubbed the “Religions Freedoms Restoration Act, provides in relevant part:

STATE ACTION shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.

These are IDENTICAL.

Could RFRA even be passed today?

In 1993, the Federal Religious Freedom Act garnered near universal support across the political aisle. In 2014, the Arizona Religious Freedom Act may erupt a powder keg. Note the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of RFRA as applied to the Federal Government.

By the way, this analysis applies similarly to the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. It passed the House by a vote of 342-67, passed the Senate by a vote of 85-14, and (two months before the election) President Clinton signed it into law.  It’s remarkable how much things have changed in two decades.

In Fernandez v. California, Justice Thomas pens a perpetual dissent to remind us that he dissented in Georgia v. Randolph, and still disagrees with it.

I join the opinion of the Court, which faithfully applies Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S. 103 (2006). I write sepa- rately to make clear the extent of my disagreement with Randolph.

I dissented in Randolph because the facts of that case did not implicate a Fourth Amendment search and never should have been analyzed as such. Id., at 145 (THOMAS, J., dissenting) (“[N]o Fourth Amendment search occurs where . . . the spouse of an accused voluntarily leads the police to potential evidence of wrongdoing by the ac- cused”). Instead of deciding the case on that narrow ground, the majority in Randolph looked to “widely shared social expectations” to resolve whether the wife’s consent to a search should control over her husband’s objection. Id., at 111. I find no support for that novel analytical approach in the Fourth Amendment’s text or history, or in this Court’s jurisprudence. See id., at 128–131 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting). Accordingly, given a blank slate, I would analyze this case consistent with THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s dissent in Randolph: “A warrantless search is reasonable if police obtain the voluntary consent of a person authorized to give it.” Id., at 128. That is because “[c]o-occupants have ‘assumed the risk that one of their number might permit [a] common area to be searched.’” Ibid. (quoting United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164, 171, n. 7 (1974)). In this case, the trial court found that Rojas’ consent was voluntary, see ante, at n. 2, and petitioner does not contest that Rojas had common authority over the premises. That should be the end of the matter.

Justice Scalia briefly concurred in Fernandez v. California to remind us that the opinion he wrote in Jones is still the law!

To be sure, under Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), “property rights ‘are not the sole measure of Fourth Amendment violations.’” Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S. 1, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 3). But as we have recently made clear, “[t]he Katz reasonable-expectations test ‘has been added to, not substituted for,’ the traditional property- based understanding of the Fourth Amendment.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 9) (quoting United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 8)). I would therefore find this a more difficult case if it were established that property law did not give petitioner’s cotenant the right to admit visitors over petitioner’s objection.  

Citing some old property treatises, Justice Scalia does not find a violation of the Jones 4th Amendment “property right” test.

That difficulty does not arise, however, because the authorities cited by the ami- cus association fail to establish that a guest would commit a trespass if one of two joint tenants invited the guest to enter and the other tenant forbade the guest to do so. Indeed, what limited authority there is on the subject points to the opposite conclusion. See, e.g., 86 C. J. S., Tenancy in Common §144, p. 354 (2006) (a licensee of one tenant “is not liable in trespass to nonconsenting coten- ants”); Dinsmore v. Renfroe, 66 Cal. App. 207, 212–214, 225 P. 886, 888–889 (1924); Buchanan v. Jencks, 38 R. I. 443, 446–451, 96 A. 307, 309–311 (1916) (and cases cited therein); cf. 2 H. Tiffany, Real Property §457, p. 274 (3d ed. 1939) (endorsing the opposite view but acknowledging that “there is little authority” on the question). There accordingly is no basis for us to conclude that the police infringed on any property right of petitioner’s when they entered the premises with his cotenant’s consent.

Note: the majority, by Justice Alito (who didn’t really agree with Scalia’s opinion in Jones), did not cite Jones.