The court ruled that the Necessary and Proper clause gave Congress the implied power to create a second national bank in Maryland and the state could not tax the bank.
Another Congressional power that was explicitly stated in the Constitution was the impeachment powers in Article I, Section 2 and 3. Congress has the authority to impeach a sitting President in office.
The impeachment process is as such, the House of Representatives brings articles of impeachment against the official and then the Senate is responsible for the impeachment trial. In order to impeach a sitting President, the Senate must vote two-thirds.
Print Materials Brochures International Translations. Timeline of Congress and the Capitol Prologue - - - - - - Present Epilogue. Breadcrumb U. What Congress Does. Angel Raich, allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes under California's Compassionate Use Act, sued Attorney General Gonzales to prevent further federal raids on her home and garden. The case raised the issue of whether federal drug laws prohibiting the private possession of marijuana preempt state laws that authorize possession and consumption for medical pruposes with a doctor's prescription.
After the DEA seized doctor-prescribed marijuana from the home of a patient, Angel Raich and other patients sued. The United States contended that laws authorizing medical marijuana in California and 10 other states interfere with federal drug enforcement. Raich and fellow medical marijuana user Diane Monson argued that medical marijuana grown and consumed entirely on private property, or provided by a local medical caregiver, is not "an article of commerce" within the power of Congress to regulate.
The question the Court considered was: "Is this case distinguishable from the wheat-consumer in Wickard v Filburn? Joining the liberals in the majority were conservatives Scalia and Kennedy, who have been skeptical of strained exercises of the Commerce Clause power in other contexts.
Justices O'Connor, Rehnquist, and Thomas dissented. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises. The tax, imposed after an earlier attempt to block the interstate transportation and sale of products produced by child labor was struck down in Hammer , was seen by the Court as an unconstitutional attempt to make an end-run around its earlier decision. The Court reversed its ban on taxes serving primarily regulatory rather than revenue-producing goals in Steward Machine , which upheld a tax on employers designed to encourage states to enact unemployment compensation schemes.
In Kahriger , the Court upheld a law requiring bookies to register and pay on tax on all wagers--even though the tax had the regulatory goal of wiping out bookmaking operations and could not be expected to produce significant revenue. In perhaps the most significant taxing power case ever decided, the Court ruled in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius that the so-called "individual mandate" generally considered a requirement that individuals purchase health insurance contained in the Affordable Care Act could be sustained as a tax, even though the requirement was outside of Congress's power to regulate commerce.
Writing for five members of the Court, Chief Justice Roberts held that even though proponents of the Act consistently said a penalty, not a tax, would apply to individuals who failed to purchase insurance, it still operated as a tax and that a functional analysis should control. The Court noted that failure to purchase insurance required a payment to the IRS, that no criminal penalties attached to failure to purchase insurance, and that the cost of the tax would, in most cases, be less than the cost of buying insurance.
In sum, the law did not make it unlawful to purchase insurance, allowing individuals a choice of paying a tax instead. Roberts also reaffirmed that the Congress may seek to achieve regulatory goals through its taxing power that it might not be able to achieve under its other Article I powers. Justices Kennedy, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas dissented, arguing that the taxing power could not sustain the mandate.
South Dakota, which allowed year-olds to drink and stood to lose federal funds for highway construction, sued Secretary Dole, arguing that the law was not a constitutional exercise of the power of Congress to spend--but rather was an attempt to enact a national drinking age. In upholding the federal law, the Court announced a four-part test for evaluating the constitutionality of conditions attached to federal spending programs: 1 the spending power must be exercised in pursuit of the general welfare, 2 grant conditions must be clearly stated, 3 the conditions must be related to a federal interest in the national program or project, and 4 the spending power cannot be used to induce states to do things that would themselves be unconstitutional.
The Court considered--perhaps unrealistically--the grant condition to be a financial "inducement" for South Dakota to enact a higher drinking age rather than financial "compulsion" to do so--suggesting the possibility of a different result if a higher percentage of funds had been withheld.
In dissent, Justice O'Connor argued that spending conditions should be found constitutional only if they related to how the federal grant dollars were to be spent. In , the Court considered whether provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which withheld federal funds from states that failed to expand Medicaid coverage in specified ways, was within the power of Congress under the Spending Clause.
In National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius , the Court held that it was unconstitutional to threaten states with the withholding of all federal Medicaid funding, including their existing funding, for failing to expand coverage in the ways Congress sought to encourage. As a result, seven justices agreed that the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion provisions violated the principle that the spending power can not be used to coerce states into enacting legislation or participating in a federal program.
The Court distinguished South Dakota v Dole , noting that the funds potentially lost by South Dakota in that case representing only one-half a percent of the state's budget. New Mexico contended that Congress could regulate only those state actions on federal land that threaten to damage public lands.
The Court, however, rejected this narrow interpretation. Congress has the power to enact "needful" regulations "respecting" the public lands and--according to the Courtwhat is a "needful" regulation is a decision "entrusted primarily to the judgment of Congress. The Court did "not think it appropriate [in Kleppe ] To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District not exceeding ten Miles square as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And.
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Power to enforce the protections of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises.
The tax, imposed after an earlier attempt to block the interstate transportation and sale of products produced by child labor was struck down in Hammer , was seen by the Court as an unconstitutional attempt to make an end-run around its earlier decision. In , in Linder v United States , the Court reversed the conviction of a doctor who had given three cocaine tablets to a patient to relieve an addiction.
The Court concluded that the law could survive only as a revenue measure, and that the Taxing Power gave Congress no authority to regulate directly the practice of medicine--that is, to tell doctors who had paid the required tax what they can or cannot do for their patients.
0コメント