How the Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved the Individual Mandate
U of Michigan Public Law Working Paper No. 263
Michigan Law Review First Impressions, Vol. 11, p. 44, February 2012
9 Pages Posted: 1 Feb 2012
Date Written: January 31, 2012
Abstract
The PPACA's individual mandate would be considerably more vulnerable to commerce-clause attack if United States v. Lopez had never been decided. To be sure, Lopez stands for the proposition that the commerce power is limited. But both as a matter of common-law process and as a matter of constitutional discourse, Lopez has helped create the conditions under which this particular exercise of the commerce power is easy to validate as constitutional.
Keywords: PPACA, Individual mandate, commerce clause, commerce power, United States v. Lopez, federalism
JEL Classification: K20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation