John F. Manning warns that “freestanding federalism” — limiting the federal government’s authority via federalism-based rulings arising from the federalism-related clauses of the Constitution considered collectively — inappropriately departs from the Court’s recent statutory construction rulings, which hold that abstracting from a law’s specific means to general aims “dishonors the level of generality at which lawmakers choose to legislate.” Manning contends that the Court’s view of statutory construction flows from an understanding that legislation arises from compromise, which he suggests is also true for constitution-making. Read more here.
