Randy Evan Barnett (born February 5, 1952, in Chicago) is an American lawyer, law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and legal theorist. He writes about the libertarian theory of law and contract theory, constitutional law, and jurisprudence. After attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Barnett worked as a prosecutor in Chicago, Illinois. Barnett's first academic position was at the Chicago-Kent College of Law of the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The power of Congress to make all laws which are necessary and proper to regulate commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations, shall not be construed to include the power to regulate or prohibit any activity that is confined within a single state regardless of its effects outside the state, whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom, or whether its regulation or prohibition is part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme; but Congress shall have power to regulate harmful emissions between one state and another, and to define and provide for punishment of offenses constituting acts of war or violent insurrection against the United States.  The Constitution grants Congress the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." That is amplified by the additional power "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers...." The amendment would overrule the current interpretation of the commerce clause by removing three applications of the interstate commerce clause: the regulation of an activity having effects outside of a state, the regulation of instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and regulation as part of a broader regulatory scheme.  In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could regulate the production of wheat by a farmer named Roscoe Filburn despite the fact that Filburn did not intend to sell any of the wheat across state lines. The court ruled that since in the aggregate, unregulated wheat could have an effect on interstate commerce, it was covered by the commerce clause.  The Court has held, "Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities." In one instance, the Court upheld federal safety regulations of vehicles used in intrastate commerce, on the grounds that they run on highways of interstate commerce.  In Gonzales v. Raich, the court ruled that the commerce clause extended to noneconomic regulatory schemes of congress.

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