521 U.S.898 (1997)

1. Certiorari to USCA

2. Jay Printz, sheriff of Ravalli Co, MT field suit challenging the constitutional of the Brady Bill (Gun Control Act of 1993 requiring the atty. general to establish a national database for allowing for instant background checks of those attempting to buy handguns).

The act permitted gun dealers to sell firearms to buyers who already possessed a state handgun permit or who lived in states with existing instant background checks. Where neither of these were possible the Act REQUIRED certain actions by the local chief law enforcement officer to receive firearm purchase forms from gun dealers and make a reasonable effort within 5 business days to verify that the proposed sale was not to a person unqualified under the law.

The district court declared the act unconstitutional to the extent that it forced state officers to carry out federal policies. The Ct of Appeals reversed.

3. Shall the Sheriff be required to carry out the provisions of this law?

4. Is this law a constitutional exercise of Congress’s "necessary and proper clause" coupled with the Commerce Power.

5. Justice Scalia for the Court.

6. The Brady Act purports to direct state law enforcement officers to participate in the administration of a federal enacted regulatory scheme. Because there is no constitutional text speaking to this precise question, the answer to the CLEO’s challenge must be sought in historical understanding and practice and in the structure of the Constitutional and in the jurisprudence of this Court.

HISTORY: The appellees argue that there are many statutes of the fed that have required state action (eg, to record applications for citizenship). These and other actions related to judicial enforcement of federal prescriptions. Judges apply the law of other sovereigns all the time. None of these earlier statutes related to law enforcement.

What of more recent laws that require the participation of state or local officials in implementing federal regulatory schemes. Many of these are connected to conditions upon the grant of federal funding and are not controlling here.

The STRUCTURE of the Constitution is relevant. It established a system of "dual sovereignty" in which states retained a "residuary and inviolable sovereignty."

The Constitution requires that the President take care to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The Brady Act effectively transfers this responsibility to thousands of CLEO’s without effective Presidential control.

The Necessary and Proper Clause and the Commerce Clause does not permit Congress to compel the States to require or prohibit specified actions. Congress may regulate commerce directly but does not authorize Congress to regulate state governments’ regulations of interstate commerce.

It is an essential attribute of the States’ retained sovereignty that they remain independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority. Essentially, "The federal government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

7. Reversed.

8. The Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause are not sufficient to overcome state Sovereignty.

9. Federalism lives. Printz is highly indicative of the Rehnquist Court’s position on federalism. Dual Sovereignty is invoked to prohibit federal commandeering of the states to carry out federal directives.

10. Thomas Concurring -- The power to regulate Commerce does not extend to regulation of wholly intrastate, point of sale transactions. Congress surely lacks the corollary power to impress state law enforcement officers into administering and enforcing such regulations.

11. Stevens dissenting -- joined by Souter, Ginsburg & Breyer

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as on ordinary citizens {Q -- Why not legislatures as addressed in New York v. U.S.)

The 10th Amendment impose\s no restriction on affirmative grants of power to the federal government. There is not a clause, sentence or paragraph in the entire text of the Const that supports the proposition that a local police officer can ignore a command contained in a statute enacted by Congress pursuant to a delegated power. If Congress believes that such a statute as this will benefit the people of the Nation and serve the interests of cooperative federalism better than an enlarged federal bureaucracy we should respect that decision.

Souter dissenting -- Federalist #27 is persuasive here along with #44 and #36 & 45. Hamilton in #27 notes that because the new Const authorizes the national govt to bind individuals directly it could employ the ordinary magistracy of each state in the execution if its laws. The Supremacy Clause and state officers oath requirements justifies a favorable decision for this law.

Madison in #44 asks why state magistrates should have to swear to uphold the National Const when national officials will not be obliged to uphold state constitutions.