Tuesday, July 05, 2005

An Anti-Federalist to the Court?

One of the more interesting pieces of information concerning the Supreme Court nominations involves one of the potential nominees, Michael J. Luttig, a judge on the 4th circuit court of appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia. Luttig dissented in a case where the majority ruled that for North Carolina farmers to shoot Red Wolves, which have been categorized as Endangered Species, on their property, would be a violation of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. However, is Luttig's dissention, the judge argued that since there were only 43 known Red Wolves in North Carolina, the issue cannot possibly be one of "interstate commerce", and hence is out of the jurisdiction of the federal legislature.
This philosophy that Luttig embraces is called "New Federalism", the belief that Congress should not enact laws that bind the states. However, to the writer, it seems to contradict the very purpose of James Madison's constitution, which was written to replace the Ariticles of Confederation, which gave the federal government so little power since every state had to ratify every law that was passed in the capitol.

1 Comments:

At 2:24 PM, Blogger Jack said...

Thanks for the compliment. Tu parles Francais? J'ai habite a Paris pendant 4 ans.

 

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