The current extended interpretation of the Commerce Clause Research Paper

The current extended interpretation of the Commerce Clause - Research Paper Example There is little doubt that the conventional and accepted common meaning of commerce both in common discourse as well as in legal language, was mercantile trade and the additionally associated activities (Natelson & Kopel, 2011). There are at least four possible interpretations which have been proposed in interpretation of the Commercial Clause (Scheb & Stephens, 2007, pg. 100). First it has been advocated that the clause bestows upon the Congress the absolute power to control commerce. Under this construal, states are deprived off power to check interstate commerce. Secondly, it has been interprated that theclause gives Congress and the states contemporaneous powers to regulate commerce. Under this interpretation, state regulation of commerce is unenforceable only in cases where it is pre-empted by federal laws (Exploring Constitutional Conflicts, 2011). Third, the Commerce Clause has been interpreted to imply that both the congress and the states each have their own mutually exclusive zones of regulatory power. Under this construal, it becomes the responsibility of the judicial system to determine whether one sovereign has invaded the exclusive regulatory zone of the other. The last interpretation that has been advanced is that the clause by its own force dissociates states the power to regulate commerce in certain ways, but both the Congress and States retain coexisting power to control commerce in many other respects. This forth interpretation, is a complicated and convoluted hybrid of two others, and it is the approach employed by the courts in their decision while interpreting the commerce clause. According to Marshall (Kommers, Finn, & Jacobsohn, 2004, pg. 301), as long as any aspect of commerce implicated or involved more than one state, such as transportation or the exchange of commodities across state lines, congress may regulate it. The power to regulate, however, is equally broad. He added, this power, like all others