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The Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence filed an important amicus brief in Hettinga v. United States, urging the Supreme Court to review a constitutional challenge to depression-era regulations of the price of milk.
The Hettingas were singled out for discriminatory treatment by the Milk Regulatory Equity Act of 2005, an amendment to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, because they had found a way through the byzantine regulatory morass to sell milk to Costco for 20 cents less per gallon than other milk producers. Imagine the temerity of someone actually trying to compete by offering to sell his product at a lower price! But the regulators closed ranks in response to pleas from the milk lobby. Not only were the Hettingas barred from pursuing their business plan, but similar entities in Nevada were exempted from the new restriction (Nevada Senator Harry Reid cosponsored the legislation).
Our nation's Founders were wise enough to know of the dangers of such "partial" and discriminatory legislation. They took steps to prevent it by, among other things, writing into the Constitution a clause that prevents Congress from giving a "preference" by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another. The principle underlying that Constitutional requirement was violated here, and we have urged the Court to hold the recent law unconstitutional.
Read the full brief here.
