LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Commerce Clause: States
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To what extent does the federal Commerce Clause limit a state's power to tax companies that do business within its borders? Should a state be able to tax a company that has no physical presence within the state?
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Despite this history, coming to an original understanding of the Commerce Clause is possible and, even more, necessary. Difficult as it may be to give a succinct definition of the commerce power, it is often quite easy to identify territory clearly falling outside the power. It is ... quite possible to identify many areas falling within. In particular, documents from the founding era, most notably The Federalist and records of the ratification conventions, provide insight into the definition and use of the words "commerce," "among the several States," and "to regulate."
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The federal government has ... used the Commerce Clause to establish a large number of federal criminal statutes. In fact, the majority of all federal criminal statutes find their origin in the judicial perversion of the Constitution through the Commerce Clause. Congress simply declares the activity it seeks to criminalize has a “substantial adverse effect on interstate commerce,” and, through a stroke of the pen, the federal government magically expands its criminal jurisdiction over the people of the several States.
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Christie contends that his indictment violated the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment because § 841(a)(1) is not rationally related to an express Congressional power. The Tenth Amendment provides that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” U.S. Const. amend. X. Because the Tenth Amendment does not operate on the valid exercise of powers delegated to Congress by the Commerce Clause, no violation of the Amendment occurs if Congress’s passage of an act was a valid exercise of those powers.
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For years, political activists have turned to the Commerce Clause when they want to pass sweeping legislation. Liberals see it as a broad grant of power to Congress to advance almost any legislation they support. They treat “interstate commerce” in its broadest possible sense, including any kind of human activity that might affect someone or something that could conceivably cross state lines at some time. Thus, even though a particular endangered field mouse may never travel more than 20 miles from its native sand dunes in Southern California, environmental activists would protect it under the “interstate commerce clause.” Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed to take over American health care — one seventh of our national economy — using Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. Homosexual activists see the Commerce Clause as their fastest way to prohibit private discrimination.
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This is informally known as “the commerce clause” - sixteen seemingly innocent words from which have sprung volumes of laws, commentaries, and disputes. Why even include such a clause? The reason - what if a state like New Jersey was able to charge tariffs or prevent ships from New York from entering their waters? If a shipment had to cross many states, say from Massachusetts to Virginia, and each state had different laws about weights and measures, or what could be carried on their roads, it would be difficult to do business. The Founding Fathers felt that there is a national interest in encouraging the flow of goods from one state to another.
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