134
Souter, J., dissenting
thought to implement the more limited view of the Commerce Clause in 1925. The first possibility would result in a statutory ambit frozen in time, behooving Congress to amend the statute whenever it desired to expand arbitration clause enforcement beyond its scope in 1925; the second would produce an elastic reach, based on an understanding that Congress used language intended to go as far as Congress could go, whatever that might be over time.
In Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265 (1995), we decided that the elastic understanding of § 2 was the more sensible way to give effect to what Congress intended when it legislated to cover contracts "involving commerce," a phrase that we found an apt way of providing that coverage would extend to the outer constitutional limits under the Commerce Clause. The question here is whether a similarly general phrase in the § 1 exemption, referring to contracts of "any . . . class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," should receive a correspondingly evolutionary reading, so as to expand the exemption for employment contracts to keep pace with the enhanced reach of the general enforceability provision. If it is tempting to answer yes, on the principle that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, it is sobering to realize that the Courts of Appeals have, albeit with some fits and starts as noted by Justice Stevens, ante, at 129-130 (dissenting opinion),1 overwhelmingly rejected the evolutionary reading of § 1 accepted by the Court of Appeals in this case. See ante, at 110-111 (opinion of the Court) (citing cases). A ma-1 Compare, e. g., Asplundh Tree Expert Co. v. Bates, 71 F. 3d 592, 600- 601 (CA6 1995) (construing exclusion narrowly), with Willis v. Dean Witter Reynolds, 948 F. 2d 305, 311-312 (CA6 1991) (concluding, in dicta, that contracts of employment are generally excluded), and Gatliff Coal Co. v. Cox, 142 F. 2d 876, 882 (CA6 1944) ("[T]he Arbitration Act excluded employment contracts"). See also Craft v. Campbell Soup Co., 177 F. 3d 1083, 1086, n. 6 (CA9 1999) (noting intracircuit inconsistency).
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