Block II: The Rise of Federal Powers

• created by the Act to Regulate Commerce (1887)

• 5 Commissioners, nominated by President and confirmed by Senate (No more than three commissioners from one political party)

• Very large salaries (more than most federal judges)

• Broad powers to investigate, hear complaints, subpoena witnesses and documents, issue orders and litigate

• Staggered terms of six terms (so one President does not get to name all/most of the commissioners suddenly)

= a package of liberal reforms that Johnson meant to realize the unfulfilled ambition of the New Deal.

A concept that leaves everything to the free play of supply and demand => pure form of economic liberalism (libertarianism)

Case

• New York implemented a system to regulate bakeries

• regulations were for safety and health: e.g. limiting working hours (maximum 60 hours per week; maximum 10 hours per day) and that bakers should not sleep where they work => this had long been demanded by unions

• implementation was more difficult for small bakeries

• Lochner is a German owner of a small bakery: saw the regulation as an unconstitutional infringement of his freedom and property rights

Decision

• SC agreed and followed the Jacksonian rejection of “class legislation”

• government policy power does not give authority to redistribute resources just because they don't like the current distribution

• working more than 60 hours does not lead to worse bread or unhealthier bakers

• there are indeed workers to be protected => no possibility to negotiate wages; who are under duress; who are unable to conclude contracts due to lack of capacity (this did not apply to the bakers)

  • was different for the miners and seamen: were under duress, which is why they accepted the terms of the contract

• Protecting liberty of contract i.e. should be up to workers to decide how long they want to work

  
  

  
  

• sudden change of jurisdiction by Justice Owen Roberts in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (minimum wage law)

• Roberts decided to uphold Washington State's minimum wage law.

• This decision came less than two months after President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his court reform bill (court-packing)

=> strategic move to protect the integrity and independence of the court from political pressure

• Presidential vs. Parliamentary system

  • parliamentary system: the legislature has no reason to impose rules on ‘its’ executive – the parliamentary majority controls government

  • presidential system: not the case, so legislature has more of reason to pass constraints

=> Congress is reasserting some control over the New Deal executive power