Cite as: 513 U. S. 265 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
marking its permissible outer limit); see also Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U. S., at 407 (Harlan, J., concurring) (endorsing Robert Lawrence Co. v. Devonshire Fabrics, Inc., 271 F. 2d 402, 407 (CA2 1959) (Congress, in enacting the FAA, "took pains to utilize as much of its power as it could")).
Finally, a broad interpretation of this language is consistent with the Act's basic purpose, to put arbitration provisions on " 'the same footing' " as a contract's other terms. Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S., at 511. Conversely, a narrower interpretation is not consistent with the Act's purpose, for (unless unreasonably narrowed to the flow of commerce) such an interpretation would create a new, unfamiliar test lying somewhere in a no man's land between "in commerce" and "affecting commerce," thereby unnecessarily complicating the law and breeding litigation from a statute that seeks to avoid it.
We recognize arguments to the contrary: The pre-New Deal Congress that passed the Act in 1925 might well have thought the Commerce Clause did not stretch as far as has turned out to be the case. But, it is not unusual for this Court in similar circumstances to ask whether the scope of a statute should expand along with the expansion of the Commerce Clause power itself, and to answer the question affirmatively—as, for the reasons set forth above, we do here. See, e. g., McLain v. Real Estate Bd. of New Orleans, Inc., 444 U. S. 232, 241 (1980); Hospital Building Co. v. Trustees of Rex Hospital, 425 U. S. 738, 743, n. 2 (1976).
Further, the Gwins and Dobsons point to two cases containing what they believe to be favorable language. In Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344 (1922), and then again in Leather Workers v. Herkert & Meisel Trunk Co., 265 U. S. 457 (1924), they say, this Court said that one might draw a distinction between, on the one hand, cases that "involve interstate commerce intrinsically," and, on the other hand, cases "affecting interstate commerce so directly
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