The Return of the Commerce Clause

Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

For its first 150 years, the Supreme Court interpreted "among the several states" to mean that legislators could set rules only for trade that crossed state lines—via railroad, for example—and not for manufacturing, farming, or other business conducted exclusively within a state. In the face of the Great Depression's economic devastation and relentless political pressure from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, the court drastically shifted its understanding of the Commerce Clause (along with its view of a number of other parts of the Constitution). By 1942, in the landmark case of Wickard v. Filburn, the court upheld federal regulation of a farmer who grew wheat strictly for his own consumption. In a modern economy, the court reasoned, even subsistence crops affect demand in the national marketplace.

Does the logic of Wickard v. Filburn cover President Barack Obama's plan for health care, an industry responsible for 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product? It's a dandy law school exam question.

A long article well worth your time. Does anyone on the U.S. Supreme Court have the courage of this man, who's universally despised in law schools everywhere in the United States?