The Record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Critical Legal Rights for Women: Other Issues That Have an Impact Women's Rights: Federalism/Congressional Authority Under the Commerce Clause

Judge Sotomayor's Legal Record: Other Issues That Have an Impact on Women's Rights

July 2009

Federalism/Congressional Authority Under the Commerce Clause

In several federal criminal cases involving convictions for gun possession and arson, defendants argued that there was no sufficient nexus to interstate commerce under the Supreme Court's decisions in United States v. Lopez[1] (finding that Congress had no authority to regulate guns in school yards) and United States v. Morrison[2] (finding that Congress had no authority to provide a federal court remedy for victims of gender-based violence). Judge Sotomayor was a member of unanimous panels that interpreted these decisions narrowly, declining to strike down the statutes in question as beyond Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause. [3]

The plaintiffs in McGinty v. New York,[4] however, were about to be awarded damages for a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) when the Supreme Court decided, in Kimel v. Fla. Bd. of Regents[5] that the ADEA does not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity. Judge Sotomayor sat on a panel of the Second Circuit that reviewed the decision, and joined the unanimous opinion stating that Kimel barred the suit, despite plaintiff's contention that they had shown an actual constitutional violation. This was a reasonable application of Kimel at the time, although later invalidated by U.S. v. Georgia.[6]

[1] 514 U.S.n> 549 (1995).

[2] 529 U.S.n> 598 (2000).

[3] See United States v. Iodice, 525 F.3d 179 (2d Cir. 2008)(holding that the federal arson statute, 18 U.S.C.