The Dormant Commerce Clause, or Negative Commerce Clause, in American constitutional law, is a legal doctrine that courts in the United States have inferred from the Commerce Clause in Article I of the US Constitution. The primary focus of the doctrine is barring state protectionism. The Dormant Commerce Clause is used to prohibit state legislation that discriminates against, or unduly burdens, interstate or international commerce. Courts first determine whether a state regulation discriminates on its face against interstate commerce or whether it has the purpose or effect of discriminating against interstate commerce. If the statute is discriminatory, the state has the burden to justify both the local benefits flowing from the statute and to show the state has no other means of advancing the legitimate local purpose.
Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908), was a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court which declared that bans on "yellow-dog" contracts were unconstitutional. The decision reaffirmed the doctrine of freedom of contract which was first recognized by the Court in Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897). For this reason, Adair is often seen as defining what has come to be known as the Lochner era, a period in American legal history in which the Supreme Court tended to invalidate legislation aimed at regulating business.
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution. The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the individual components of the Commerce Clause referred to under specific terms: the Foreign Commerce Clause, the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the Indian Commerce Clause.
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded the powers granted to the US Congress under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Along with United States v. Lopez (1995), it was part of a series of Rehnquist Court cases that limited Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause.
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois, 118 U.S. 557 (1886), also known as the Wabash Case, was a Supreme Court decision that severely limited the rights of states to control or impede interstate commerce. It led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Benjamin Robbins Curtis was an American lawyer and judge who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1851 to 1857. Curtis was the first and only Whig justice of the Supreme Court, and he was the first Supreme Court justice to have a formal law degree. He is often remembered as one of the two dissenters in the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision Dred Scott v. Sandford.
The Taxing and Spending Clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, grants the federal government of the United States its power of taxation. While authorizing Congress to levy taxes, this clause permits the levying of taxes for two purposes only: to pay the debts of the United States, and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Taken together, these purposes have traditionally been held to imply and to constitute the federal government's taxing and spending power.
Thomas McIntyre Cooley was an American judge. He was the 25th Justice and a Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, between 1864 and 1885. He was the father of sociologist Charles Cooley. He was a charter member and first chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission (1887).
Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1868), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that affirmed that a state cannot inhibit people from leaving the state by taxing them.
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of [congressional] power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238 (1936), is a United States Supreme Court decision interpreting the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which permits the United States Congress to "regulate Commerce... among the several States." Specifically, it analyzes the extent of Congress' power, according to the Commerce Clause, looking at whether or not they have the right to regulate manufacturing.
The Taney Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1836 to 1864, when Roger Taney served as the fifth Chief Justice of the United States. Taney succeeded John Marshall as Chief Justice after Marshall's death in 1835. Taney served as Chief Justice until his death in 1864, at which point Salmon P. Chase took office. Taney had been an important member of Andrew Jackson's administration, an advocate of Jacksonian democracy, and had played a major role in the Bank War, during which Taney wrote a memo questioning the Supreme Court's power of judicial review. However, the Taney Court did not strongly break from the decisions and precedents of the Marshall Court, as it continued to uphold a strong federal government with an independent judiciary. Most of the Taney Court's holdings are overshadowed by the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the court ruled that African-Americans could not be citizens. However, the Taney Court's decisions regarding economic issues and separation of powers set important precedents, and the Taney Court has been lauded for its ability to adapt regulatory law to a country undergoing remarkable technological and economic progress.
Smith v. Turner; Norris v. Boston, 48 U.S. 283 (1849), were two similar cases, argued together before the United States Supreme Court, which decided 5–4 that states do not have the right to impose a tax that is determined by the number of passengers of a designated category on board a ship and/or disembarking into the State. The cases are sometimes called the Passenger Case or Passenger Cases.
Levi Woodbury was an American attorney, jurist, and Democratic politician from New Hampshire. During a four-decade career in public office, Woodbury served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a United States Senator, the ninth governor of New Hampshire, and cabinet member in the Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren administrations. He was promoted as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1848.
The Railroad Commission Cases, 116 U.S. 307 (1886), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the power of states to set transportation charges of railroad companies. The Court held that the fixing of freight and passenger rates in railroad transportation was a permissible exercise of state police power.
H.P. Hood & Sons v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525 (1949), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held a New York protectionist law which prohibits licensure to suppliers who are alleged will create “destructive competition” in the local market to violate the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Article I, § 10, clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Import-Export Clause, prevents the states, without the consent of Congress, from imposing tariffs on imports and exports above what is necessary for their inspection laws and secures for the federal government the revenues from all tariffs on imports and exports. Several nineteenth century Supreme Court cases applied this clause to duties and imposts on interstate imports and exports. In 1869, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Import-Export Clause only applied to imports and exports with foreign nations and did not apply to imports and exports with other states, although this interpretation has been questioned by modern legal scholars.
Brown v. Maryland, 25 U.S. 419 (1827), was a significant United States Supreme Court case which interpreted the Import-Export and Commerce Clauses of the U.S. Constitution to prohibit discriminatory taxation by states against imported items after importation, rather than only at the time of importation. The state of Maryland passed a law requiring importers of foreign goods to obtain a license for selling their products. Brown was charged under this law and appealed. It was the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court construed the Import-Export Clause. Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the opinion of the court, ruling that Maryland's statute violated the Import-Export and Commerce Clauses and the federal law was supreme. He alleged that the power of a state to tax goods did not apply if they remained in their "original package". A license tax on the importer was essentially the same as a tax on an import itself. Despite arguing the case for Maryland, future chief justice Roger Taney admitted that the case was correctly decided.
Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U.S. 259 (1876), was decision of the United States Supreme Court delivered by Justice Samuel Freeman Miller.
