Quote:
Originally Posted by Rococo
And you cite the Lochner era decisions for that principle? That's a two-fisted head grabber.
I cite the lochnet era decisions for that principle for the commerce clause. I agree on the rest with you wrt expansive readings of the 14a.
The expansive reading allowed blocking economic-limitating decisions of STATES, that i agree wasn't the textual proper reading of the constitution.
But the federals can't regulate anything in the constitution in a restrictive sense with the commerce clause which is (was) only about not letting a state block stuff produced in another state.
Like the commerce clause literal reading doesn't allow any federal regulation to commerce which limits any activity of producers at all.
Regulating TRADE (that's what commerce means in the constitution) means state regulations can't interfere with the flow of goods between states, production methods, workers right and so on don't even enter the picture, ever, at all.
Lochner era starts with SCOTUS killing a Louisiana regulation (under the 14a). That's an expansive legislation from the bench sure.
But saying to the federal government regulating trade doesn't mean you can regulate anything that in any way or form affects the production of goods, only against that which would restrict it or it's flow between states, is the only proper reading of the plain text of the commerce clause.
So back to my claim, in the Lochner era the commerce clause specifically (not the whole constitution) was applied as written & intended by founders, unlike in the following decades with the abusive disasters of leftist legislating from the bench.
So it is *not true* that the USA became a superpower thanks to an all-powerful federal regulatory state, as the claim that i responded to insisted.
The USA became a superpower without almost any federal regulatory power in place (except antitrust) . So massive centralized regulatory powers objectively played no role in the USA becoming a superpower.