584
Thomas, J., concurring
Justice Thomas, concurring.
The Court today properly concludes that the Commerce Clause does not grant Congress the authority to prohibit gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school, as it attempted to do in the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-647, 104 Stat. 4844. Although I join the majority, I write separately to observe that our case law has drifted far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause. In a future case, we ought to temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence in a manner that both makes sense of our more recent case law and is more faithful to the original understanding of that Clause.
We have said that Congress may regulate not only "Commerce . . . among the several States," U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, but also anything that has a "substantial effect" on such commerce. This test, if taken to its logical extreme, would give Congress a "police power" over all aspects of American life. Unfortunately, we have never come to grips with this implication of our substantial effects formula. Although we have supposedly applied the substantial effects test for the past 60 years, we always have rejected readings of the Commerce Clause and the scope of federal power that would permit Congress to exercise a police power; our cases are quite clear that there are real limits to federal power. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 155 (1992) ("[N]o one disputes the proposition that '[t]he Constitution created a Federal Government of limited powers' ") (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196 (1968); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937). Cf. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 435 (1793) (Iredell, J.) ("Each State in the Union is sovereign as to all the powers reserved. It must necessarily be so, because the United States have no claim to any authority but such as the States have surrendered to them") (emphasis deleted). Indeed, on this crucial point, the majority and Justice Breyer agree in principle: The Federal
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