A Healthy Doctrine – Examining Sebelius’s Effects on Congressional Regulatory Powers

Oral Presentation

This project examines the effects of the Supreme Court’s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius on the Commerce and Taxing and Spending Clause doctrines. The goals of this thesis are twofold. First, it seeks to parse out the details and ambiguities surrounding the decision in Sebelius, and show how this fits with the doctrinal history of the Commerce Clause. To this end I have devised a new framework for thematically arranging the Court’s vast Commerce Clause case history. Through this new framework, I am able to show that the case marks a return to the Obstructionist pre-1937 Court jurisprudence. This novel thematic analysis is the main significance of this paper, and my main contribution to the field of political science. Secondly, this paper has shown that Sebelius not only limits the scope of Congress’s commerce power, but also how Chief Justice Roberts, through a very deft move, also limited the scope of the Government’s taxing power. Specifically, by appeasing the opposing side with a victory in the short-term, Roberts has forced Congress to turn to its taxing power for major legislations dealing with economic regulation. Given the hostile political climate around taxation, this move will come to limit this power in the long-term. Importantly, the inquiry in this paper is not merely an intellectual exercise. There are real political implications at stake in this discussion of Sebelius’s effects on Congress’s commerce and taxing powers. The case directly effects congressional proceedings, and thus, the political process.