This explanation is always trotted out whenever a decision is unpopular, portraying the court as a neutral arbiter that's just reading the rules back to the public.
The truth is, that hasn't been the court's operating model since at least 1964, when the court decided Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). In that case, the court decided that since someone could cross state lines to stay at a hotel, that Congress had the right to tell a business who their customers were under the Interstate Commerce clause.
For clarity, the Commerce Clause states that Congress has the right to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States
The court is textualist or pragmatist depending on its political leaning. The court is political. The court has no code of ethics, and the mechanism to remove justices for bad behavior is ill-defined in the constitution. In summary, they get to play by their own rules, and pretending otherwise is pure fantasy.
Um, that was a unanimous decision where they indicated that the Commerce Clause extends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to hotels that host travelers from outside a state. Essentially, the Court held the government could prevent the motel from discriminating on the basis of race under the Commerce Clause. Since the motel was positioned near Interstates 75 and 85 and received most of its business from outside Georgia, this showed that it had an impact on interstate commerce, which is all that is needed to justify Congress in exercising the Commerce Clause power.
Please explain to me how is that political, given the Civil Rights Act?
It was political because the federal government had not previously had the right to regulate businesses within a state. Only states could do that themselves. But gradually this overreach of the federal government has expanded and now they can essentially regulate anything because it could hypothetically tangentially affect commerce (see Gonzales v Raich). It is clear that the framers did not intend the interstate commerce clause to be used in this way, they intended for states to be able to regulate most things themselves (the so-called “police power”).
I guess since the federal government is allowed to prevent various forms of discrimination, including on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, this so-called overreach makes sense. And I suppose since one particular party wants to discriminate against those people, that makes it political?
The older I get, the more I see States' Rights as a smokescreen that originally protected slavery, and is now used to block civil rights, health care, privacy rights, and environmental protection.
The truth is, that hasn't been the court's operating model since at least 1964, when the court decided Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). In that case, the court decided that since someone could cross state lines to stay at a hotel, that Congress had the right to tell a business who their customers were under the Interstate Commerce clause.
For clarity, the Commerce Clause states that Congress has the right to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States
The court is textualist or pragmatist depending on its political leaning. The court is political. The court has no code of ethics, and the mechanism to remove justices for bad behavior is ill-defined in the constitution. In summary, they get to play by their own rules, and pretending otherwise is pure fantasy.