Altered States: Review of John T. Noonan, Jr., 'Narrowing the Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides with the States

John C. Eastman, Chapman University

This article was originally published in the Claremont Review of Books, volume 3, issue 2, in 2003.

Abstract

Conservative Ninth Circuit Judge John Noonan's book, 'Narrowing the Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides with the States', lambasts the Supreme Court's federalism decisions, a hallmark of the Rehnquist Court's revival of the limits on national power originally envisioned by those who drafted and ratified the Constitution. This review takes Judge Noonan to task for misconstruing the original meaning of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, for example, but agrees with his assessment that the Court's 11th Amendment jurisprudence is a doctrinal mess.