BUS 346 Week 2 Discussion 2

BUS 346 Week 2 Discussion 2 | Assignment Help | Mercer University

Discussion #2b - Interstate Commerce

We never did quite get to all the abuses that existed by the end of the late 1800s in the last discussion. Basically, the Supreme Court started to very narrowly define :interstate commerce," thereby dramatically limiting Congress's power to regulate. As big business got powerful, part of that power was in the local (state or city) officers who were elected (and usually, loyal to these big businesses). Not surprisingly, these local officials made laws that were very beneficial to the businesses. When Congress attempted to legislate against some of these abuses, the Supreme Court held that Congress had no authority to regulate activity that was purely intrastate (i.e., not interstate). What did we get from this lack of federal regulatory power? Sweatshops in New York, mining towns in West Virginia that completely controlled its workers lives, poultry farms in Georgia that also made conditions for workers very tough, etc. The bottom line was that Congress was unable to legislate, and the states, who could legislate, chose not to because the local officials generally did very well by the big companies as long as they let the companies do whatever they wanted to do.

Let's start out by discussing for a minute how and why sweatshops arose and continued for so many years (in New York and other places). There were many immigrants from all over the world coming to New York. Much of the labor was unskilled.  What kind of a job would someone take to feed the family? How many hours per day or per week would they agree to work in order to get that job?  What kind of conditions would they be willing to put up with in order to keep that job (and keep food on the table for their family)?  How many other workers would have been willing to take that job and put up with even worse conditions?

Why did this continue for so long?  Obviously, the immigrant (and other) workers did not have any power.  Basically, big business had the power to control politicians to pass - or not pass - whatever legislation it wanted.

Eventually, Congress attempted to start passing so-called "social legislation.” But, when this legislation was challenged by businesses or by the states as exceeding Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce, the courts generally agreed.  Courts held that conditions in local factories involved solely intrastate activity - it was beyond the control of Congress. In a clever attempt to get around this, Congress passed a law in 1916 that attempted to regulate not the behavior in the factory, but rather the movement in interstate commerce of the product produced in the factory.  Specifically, it attempted to ban from interstate commerce any product manufactured by children under 14 years old, or manufactured by children 14-16 who worked more than 8 hours per day, or overnight, or more than 6 days a week.  Clever, right?  But it still failed.

In Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), the Supreme Court struck down this legislation as unconstitutional.  Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce did not reach this far.  If anyone was going to regulate this activity, it had to be the states.  And guess what the states were not interested in doing?

So, in the early 1900s, we had a very narrow interpretation of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.  It was as narrow as it would ever be.  This battle for legislative power between federal and state government has always existed and continues until today.

When does this very narrow interpretation of the commerce clause change?  Again, it is driven by socio-economic realities.  What happened, when, and why?