Supreme Court Allows Direct Shipment of Wine

jrrl writes "For a while now, ordering wine (of the alcoholic variety, not the almost 0.9 variety) online has been a somewhat dicey proposition in some states. But today, the Supreme Court overturned state laws that disallowed direct shipment of wine from out of state. Their reasoning is that the states' 'authority to regulate the sale of alcohol within their borders' under the 21st Amendment does not supersede 'the Constitution's ban on state discrimination against interstate commerce.' States could still disallow all direct shipments, but at least they have to be evenhanded now."

Comments

Re:Commerce Clause

[CaptainCarrot]

I'm not sure you've understood the ruling. There is indeed a "holdover from alcohol prohibition" written into the amendment that repealed it that allows States to regulate the sale and "importation" of alcohol, and that right of the States hasn't been repealed here. (Nor does the Supreme Court have the power to render one part of the Constitution "unconstitutional". Well, there's one case where it does, but this isn't it.) What the Supremes did here was to interpret the Commerce Clause to forbid States from regulating imported alcohol (from out-of-State) any differently than they do locally produced alcohol.

It's fundamental to the way the US economic system was set up that the States are prohibited from acting in a protective manner over their industries with regard to other States. You can't charge a tarriff, for example, when you import cars into California from Detroit. What a State can do is regulate the way something is sold within its borders. It seems to me Section 2 of the 21st Amendment was put there to overcome objections from those States that wanted to remain dry after Prohibition was repealed for everyone else. I think the Supremes are holding them to this. States are still allowed to prohibit mail-order booze -- but they must prohibit all of it, not allow it from in-state producers and not those from out-of-state. Many of these laws (IIRC) were frankly written to protect local wine producers. That ain't allowed.

I agree that Michigan's desired ban seems silly. But if that's what they want, they can have it. The idea that people have the right and responsibility to mostly regulate their own local affairs as they see fit is basic to our federal system. That's why we have a federal government and not a national government. (It's been acting more like the latter than the former lately. That's no reason to wish it could when we want it to -- to, say, force Michigan to allow Internet wine sales -- and similtaneously wish it wouldn't when we don't -- in, for example, the way some "homeland security" issues are being handled.)