Wickard v Filburn and US v Lopez: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s commerce clause jurisprudence represents a balance between ideology and institutional constraints. In this work, I examine to what extent ideology and institutional constraints affect the Court’s jurisprudence. As these cases often feature conflict between the states and the federal government, these cases also have important implications for federalism. This work unifies legal and social science scholarship by integrating both fields into one consistent model. Using an original dataset of all Supreme Court commerce clause cases from 1939-2012, I demonstrate that both ideology and precedent matter, suggesting that both fields are important components of an overarching theory of the Court.