FLASH: Federal highways unconstitutional

Forget high speed rail. The latest from the right wing is an attack on just about everything the federal government does. The Think Progress blog is watching developments.

In a recent radio interview, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) made the seemingly-innocuous statement that the federal highway system, as well as federal laws ensuring safe drugs and safe airplanes, are constitutional. Nevertheless, Shea-Porter is now under attack by “tenther” activists who believe that virtually everything the federal government does is unconstitutional:

The humorous part of this is how these guys think they are such original thinkers. Some of you law students might recall that the constitutionality lf federal involvement goes back to the 1790s. I think it is called the Port Wardens case. It has to do with a federal issue of interstate commerce. Tell me I am wrong.

Filed under: Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy