Frank Sponsors, Mary Jo Writes and Ben Grumbles.

Representative--now Senator--Frank Antenori sponsored a bill to oppose the federal government's mandated phase out of incandescent light bulbs.  The Republic's Mary Jo Pitzl covered the story here.

In proposing that Arizona become the national epicenter of incandescent-lightbulb manufacturing, the Tucson Republican hopes to provoke a fight with Washington, D.C., over states' rights and interstate trade.

The article did a pretty good job on a topic that's difficult to understand and easy to mock.

Then I saw this letter to the editor in today's Republic. 

Tilting at windmills, lightbulbs and low-flow toilets can cost the Legislature and citizens of the state a lot over the long run.

The letter is signed by "Ben Grumbles, Phoenix"  Wow, is that ever an understatement.  My guess is that the intern who edits the letters to the editor didn't know, or simply failed to disclose that Ben Grumbles is the Director of the Arizona Department Environmental Quality.  When the DEQ Director challenges a State Senator the letter shouldn't just be lumped in with every Tom, Dick and Jane from Peoria. 

More to the point, isn't someone going to discuss the underlying issue?  Modern interpretation of the Commerce Clause has led to a massive shift in the relationship between the federal government and the states.

Students of history will understand that it is ludicrous to think that the Constitution allows the federal government to dictate a national light bulb policy.  Whatever happened to the states being "laboratories of Democracy"?  What happened to a federal government of enumerated powers?

All that is long gone.  Antenori makes an excellent point and it's one that shouldn't be lost on reporters or regulators.  Our structure of government has undergone a massive Constitutional shift...a shift that didn't occur as the result of an amendment, or even debate. 

Frankly, I think the shift has been in the wrong direction.  It's time that people at least acknowledged that it has occurred.

Post Script for you attorneys:

Article 1 section 8, lists the enumerated powers and includes the Commerce Clause (and of course the Necessary and Proper Clause).  The Commerce Clause has been expanded (even after Morrison and Lopez) to include all economic activity. 

Section 8 also gives Congress the power to regulate bankruptcy and copyright law.  But wait a second.  Under the modern interpretation of the Commerce Clause, Congress CLEARLY has the power to regulate bankruptcy and copyrights because they are related to Commerce and Economics. 

That means that under the modern view of the Commerce Clause, the rest of Article 1 Section 8 is surplusage.  Any interpretation of the Commerce Power that is so broad as to make the rest of Article 1 Section 8 mere surplusage is clearly an absurd result. 

So the United States government has undergone a massive shift in the balance of power between the states and the federal government with little or no notice by the media or the masses.  Guys like Antenori are pointing that out and the media should resist the temptation to label them as kooks.

Comments

[Reagan Republican]

The federal government probably has the power to impose a light bulb standard on everybody. As you correctly point out, that's because of the perverted way the Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause. I believe that many of the problems we have with the federal government becoming so large and overbearing have this fundamental constitutional error at their root.

My contracts professor had a term for when an interpretation of a word had the effect of writing that word out of the statute and consuming the broader rule--it "eats Pittsburgh" (I have no clue why he called it that and I don't think he did either). In the case of the Commerce Clause, the Court didn't just eat Pittsburgh--the Court swallowed Pittsburgh whole.