
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 30, 1995                   TAG: 9505040013
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: G-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMMERCE CLAUSE

DECLARATIONS by some that a "constitutional moment" arrived Wednesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court nullified a 1990 federal law barring possession of guns near schools, are premature.

But the decision, reversing a 60-year trend, certainly opened the possibility that the court is on the verge of a fundamental - and, on balance, worrisome - reinterpretation of the constitutional powers of Congress.

As with many other federal statutes, the constitutional legitimacy for the Gun-Free School Zones Act rested in the broad interpretation that for decades has been accorded the constitutional power for Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

The law in question is in itself a relatively small matter. Most states, including Virginia, have similar laws anyway. But the decision could have implications for an array of federal anti-crime, environmental-protection and other legislation.

Still unclear is the extent to which the court is willing to narrow its understanding of the interstate-commerce clause. Would the court be satisfied, for example, if Congress were simply to insert language in the 1990 law asserting more forthrightly a finding of a connection to interstate-commerce? Or is this just the first of a series of laws on the court's chopping block?

Also, the decision Wednesday does not speak to a presumably still-valid way for Congress to reach the same ends - tying a state's eligibility for federal funds to conformity to a nationwide rule.

The uncertainty is enhanced by the close division of the court. A 5-4 vote is not the most stable of moorings from which to launch a juridical revolution. A shift of just one majority vote (that, say, of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor) would set the limit on how far the court will go in restricting Congress.

Nonetheless, if Wednesday's ruling turns out to be the first of several along the same lines, the worrisome prospect exists that a one-vote majority on the Supreme Court could hamstring efforts by Congress to take a nationwide approach to a number of nationwide problems. A proper understanding of "interstate commerce" must allow for the fact that modern national economies are internally interconnected in multiple, intricate and sometimes subtle ways.

State leeway to experiment with nationally important problems is often a good idea. But whether such leeway is wise is a determination better made by the political process than by five Supreme Court justices operating from a cramped, anachronistic notion of what interstate commerce entails.

by CNB