Today in Supreme Court History: June 23, 1987

6/23/1987: South Dakota v. Dole is decided.

Comments

[wvattorney13]

I never liked SD v. Dole. It's one of the more pernicious decisions out there. The feds can tax your money and give it back to you on conditions that they would have no power to impose straight away.

[bye]

It is a lot like unfunded mandates. Even more it reminds me of DOMA and then the decision that states who didn't recognize gay marriages of other states now had to.

I get the reasoning. Kids from Philly go over to NJ where the drinking age is lower. But that is bogus, kids can get liquor quite easily

But the problem there is the lack of enforcement that encourages kids to get around the law. Maybe a bit of the Broken Windows theory I so like

[wvattorney13]

"I get the reasoning. Kids from Philly go over to NJ where the drinking age is lower. But that is bogus, kids can get liquor quite easily."

So make the drinking age 18 nationwide to solve this problem. The criticism begs the question by assuming it is NJ's fault whereas it could equally be said that it was PA's fault.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Congress has the power to tax and spend.

They can spend it for a range of things including the promotion of the general welfare. One thing they did was provide states with highway funds. This helped to promoted the interstate highways, which Congress can regulate for various reasons.

The person who pays the piper commonly can call the tune. Congress put strings on this sort of federal funding. States had to set their drinking age at 21. If not, they lost 5% of the funding.

The rule was justified in that it furthered the safety on interstate highways. This was an at least reasonable argument.

South Dakota argued they had a 21A power to set drinking ages. So they did. They didn't have a constitutional right to highway funds while having a policy that clashed with the purpose of the funds.

Also, to the degree "coercion" was a constitution problem -- and it was unclear how much bit that concern had -- 5% was too trivial. Compare the Affordable Care Act Cases (but see Ginsburg's dissent).

I question how "pernicious" this 7-2 (with Brennan a surprise dissent) opinion truly is. The tax and spend power allows Congress to do certain things when carrying it out that it otherwise cannot do. This is true when it applies each one of its powers.

It was applied reasonably here. One can imagine some tax provision that violates the First Amendment or something.

[bye]

Don't see how you can say that

In 2023, the highest percentage of drunk drivers were 21–24 year olds, and young adults aged 21–34 had the highest percentage of alcohol-impaired deaths overall.

Drunk driving deaths are up 22% since 2019.

From 2000 to 2017, nearly 213,000 people died in alcohol-related crashes, which is more than the number of people killed in both World Wars.
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THis is like the Biden (very very stupid) approach to violence. Take a gun away from a guy headed out to kill as many schoolchildren as possible and you still have a guy who would kill as many children as possible given the chance. Nothing solved at all

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"Today in Supreme Court History: June 23, 1987"

[wvattorney13]

I always thought that the reasoning was far too attenuated. We want highways that don't have pieces of bodies on them, so in order to do that we have to keep young people from having accidents, and they have accidents because they are able to buy booze legally which they drink to excess, then break state law by getting behind the wheel of a car, and then drive on interstate highways, causing more accidents.

Were there any other steps that I missed to get from A to Z? The law does nothing to combat older people from drinking and driving and affects young people who drink but do not drive. It is both overinclusive and underinclusive.