We’ve been down this “the court is reining in the Commerce Clause!” road before. The last time the Court tried to place limitations on the use of the Commerce Clause were in the Lopez and Morrison cases. Sadly this laudatory trend was killed in the cradle by the noxious Raich decision (authored by conservative hero Antonin Scalia of all people).

Why would anyone think that this ObamaCare decision (which dealt with a unprecedented assertion of congressional power) will have a more lasting impact that Lopez and Morrison (which dealt with more mundane exercises of Commerce Clause authority)?

It’s far more likely that future Courts and Congresses will simply look at the rejection of this unique theory as a one-time occurrence (which Roberts provided a work around to anyway via the Taxing Power).

The bottom line is that no other law or Congressional theory of Commerce Clause power was impacted by yesterday’s decision. Congress still can make as much mischief as they had from the New Deal.