Bad News for Professor Koppelman: The Incidental Unconstitutionality of the Individual Mandate

Yale Law Journal Online, Vol. 121, 2011

26 Pages Posted: 24 Jun 2011 Last revised: 28 Sep 2011

See all articles by Gary Lawson

Gary Lawson

Boston University School of Law

David B. Kopel

University of Wyoming College of Law - Firearms Research Center; Independence Institute; Cato Institute; Denver University - Sturm College of Law

Date Written: September 21, 2011

Abstract

In "Bad News for Mail Robbers: The Obvious Constitutionality of Health Care Reform," Professor Andrew Koppelman concludes that the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is constitutionally authorized as a law "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" other aspects of the PPACA. However, the Necessary and Proper Clause rather plainly does not authorize the individual mandate.

The Necessary and Proper Clause incorporates basic norms drawn from eighteenth-century agency law, administrative law, and corporate law. From agency law, the clause embodies the venerable doctrine of principals and incidents: a law enacted under the clause must exercise a subsidiary rather than an independent power, must be important or customary to achievement of a principal end, and must conform to standard fiduciary obligations.

From administrative law, the Necessary and Proper Clause embodies the closely-related principle of reasonableness in the exercise of delegated power, which independently requires conformance with a similar set of fiduciary norms, including the norms of acting only within delegated jurisdiction and of treating all persons subject to a public agent‘s power impartially.

Evidence from eighteenth-century corporate law – and the Constitution was widely recognized in the founding era as a type of corporate charter – confirms these conclusions about the meaning of the phrase "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution . . . ."

The power to order someone to purchase a product is not a power subordinate or inferior to other powers, such as the power to regulate voluntary commerce. The power to compel commerce is at least as significant – or, in eighteenth-century language, as "worthy" or of the same "dignity" – as the power to regulate insurance pricing and rating practices. It is therefore not incidental to other powers exercised by Congress in the PPACA and must be separately enumerated if it is to exist.

Second, the doctrine of principals and incidents and the principle of reasonableness both embody the fiduciary norm that agents exercising delegated power must treat multiple principals subject to those agents' power impartially. Interpreting the Necessary and Proper Clause to allow Congress to force private dealings with preferred sellers of products fails that basic fiduciary norm, as illustrated by founding-era concerns about Congress invalidly using the Necessary and Proper Clause power to create monopolies.

Suggested Citation

Lawson, Gary and Kopel, David B., Bad News for Professor Koppelman: The Incidental Unconstitutionality of the Individual Mandate (September 21, 2011). Yale Law Journal Online, Vol. 121, 2011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1869243

Gary Lawson

Boston University School of Law ( email )

765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
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617-353-3812 (Phone)

David B. Kopel (Contact Author)

University of Wyoming College of Law - Firearms Research Center ( email )

United States

HOME PAGE: http://firearmsresearchcenter.org/

Independence Institute ( email )

727 East 16th Ave
Denver, CO 80203
United States
303-279-6536 (Phone)
303-279-4176 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.davekopel.org

Cato Institute ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.cato.org/people/david-kopel

Denver University - Sturm College of Law ( email )

2255 E. Evans Avenue
Denver, CO 80208
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.davekopel.org

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