Damon W. Root
Reason.com
January 4, 2011
On May 27, 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in the case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. At issue was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933, a centerpiece of the New Deal’s first 100 days hailed by President Franklin Roosevelt as “the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress.”
FDR wasn’t kidding about the law’s reach. Through the creation of more than 500 “codes of fair competition,” the NIRA sought to micro-manage even the smallest and most local aspects of the American economy, mandating everything from the price of food to the cost of having a shirt hemmed. As justification for this unprecedented power grab, Congress cited its constitutional authority to “regulate commerce…among the several states.”
But the Supreme Court wasn’t having it. The NIRA must fall, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote for the majority, otherwise there would “be virtually no limit to the federal power, and, for all practical purposes, we should have a completely centralized government.” Progressive Justice Louis Brandeis, usually a hero to the New Deal set, was equally blunt, informing White House lawyers Tommy Corcoran and Ben Cohen, “This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we’re not going to let this government centralize everything.”
