Supreme Court strikes down federal raisin program as unconstitutional

USA Today reports:

Score one for the little guy.

The Supreme Court sided with a renegade raisin farmer Monday in his battle against a federal program designed to keep excess raisins off the market.

A majority of justices ruled that the Agriculture Department program, which seizes excess raisins from producers in order to prop up market prices during bumper crop years, amounted to an unconstitutional government "taking."

But they limited their verdict to raisins, lest they simultaneously overturn other government programs that limit production of goods without actually seizing private property.

The 8-1 decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, with the court's more conservative justices in agreement. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan would have allowed the lower court to reconsider the issue.

A glimpse of the New Deal: raising prices by artificially limiting supply.