Preemption Doctrine in the Roberts Court: Constitutional Dual Federalism by Another Name?

Preemption Doctrine in the Roberts Court: Constitutional Dual Federalism by Another Name?

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Description

This chapter in Business and the Roberts Court examines the Court’s preemption decisions. These decisions do not consistently favor business interests and seem to follow a traditional script of dual federalism. When the Court enforces federal statutes having the purpose of breaking down regulatory barriers to freedom of contract, it plays a historically familiar and judicially congenial role of protecting a national market from state burdens on commerce. By contrast, preemption of state laws defining entitlements to health, safety, bodily integrity, and property more generally tend to raise culturally and politically divisive issues that are best handled subnationally in a federal regime. This categorization, more than any reductionist label, best explains the Roberts Court’s preemption decisions to date.

Source Publication

Business and the Roberts Court

Source Editors/Authors

Jonathan H. Adler

Publication Date

2016

Preemption Doctrine in the Roberts Court: Constitutional Dual Federalism by Another Name?

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