Federalism, the Commerce Clause, and Equal Protection

I did not think I would be hearing so many praises of Justice O\u27Connor, but I am going to be doing the same thing in another moment. This afternoon, I am going to talk about an important federalism case and some Commerce Clause cases, all of which bear directly on the way in which state and local governments operate. I would like to start out with a few batting averages, in terms of what the Supreme Court did last year. The Court found, particularly in the area of federalism, one federal law unconstitutional. As I add up my running total, from Marbury v. Madison today, the Court has found 129 federal laws unconstitutional. Prior to the 1991-92 Term, the Court would often invoke the First Amendment or the Fifth Amendment in order to find laws unconstitutional. It has been some time since the Court has found a federal law unconstitutional on Tenth Amendment11grounds. However, that is indeed what the Court did during this Term