One of the things I remember from my Business Law class in college. The nature of the law is that much of what seems unjust in the law is because a really problematic case is decided, and precedent can result in the unusual case becoming the rule for the common case.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704071304576160763576641114.html
Knowing that, a Solicitor General can bring a really bad case with the intent of losing the case on purpose by using flawed reasoning and creating a precedent contrary to the principles of the case. The U.S. Supreme Court is going to seriously discuss the limits of the 10th amendment, which limits Federal jurisdiction to those powers stated in the Constitution, and the rest to the States or the people. Why would the Obama government want to pursue a 10th amendement case other that to lose and discredit the argument of limited powers?
So the case being used to force this issue is a really poor example. It’s a domestic dispute – a criminal case involving two immigrants. The dispute escalates and one woman takes a letter from her neighbor’s mailbox and fills it with a poison chemical (curiuosly, it happened to be videotaped – I’m sure it wasn’t a set up just to provoke this issue)…
So the woman accused of trying to harm her neighbor is taken to Federal Court for two reasons – first, she tampered with the U.S. Mail, which is a federal crime, and operation of the Postal Service IS an enumerated power, so that isn’t even a 10th amendment issue.
The weaker case is that her use of the poisons violated administrative rules to implement a Chemical Weapons treaty ratified in 1997.
Students of the Constitution know that Treaties approved by the Senate are part of the Supreme Law of the United States – and supercede State laws. From my preliminary research, the idea is that where there is a competing claim of jurisdiction, the Federal Rule wins if the laws are in conflict, but the Federal government cannot grant itself powers that it would not otherwise have without a treaty. The State involved does not have a law that says it is lawful to poison your neighbor.
Since much of “World Government” is based on the premise that International Treaties can be forced onto States because those treaties become the Supreme Law (See: United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child), this case could either overturn the whole apple cart or affirm that if something is in a Treaty, that grants Federal jurisdiction on the matter, and the Federal Government has essentially unlimited powers over the State legislatures and Constitutions.
One of the points of argument over the Constitution was exactly that – the “House”, which is the body closer to the people has no say in Treaties, allowing a President and the “Lords” of the Senate to create laws without the consent of the people. Remember that originally the Senators were appointed by the States, not elected by the people.
