Background: This is the eighth in a series of blog posts about Mark Levin’s excellent and inspiring book, The Liberty Amendments.
I hope to convey Levin's major messages and inspire others to engage in the Convention of States (COS) project and join its underlying and growing grassroots movement to restore liberty and self-governance. I also hope to inspire you to read this book. The prior article in the series summarizes Levin’s arguments for a proposed amendment to limit the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy by expiring federal departments and agencies when not regularly reviewed, renewed and approved by Congress. In this chapter, Levin proposes how to promote free enterprise by reining in the scope-creep of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution and restrain Congress' ability to regulate businesses and other commercial private economic activity.
Levin in Chapter 7 proposes an amendment to limit federal regulation of commerce and not extend it to economic activity within a state, nor compel anyone to participate in commerce or trade.
Here is the full text of Levin’s proposed amendment (click the arrow to expand and view):
SECTION 1: Congress’s power to regulate Commerce is not a plenary grant of power to the federal government to regulate and control economic activity but a specific grant of power limited to preventing states from impeding commerce and trade between and among the several States.SECTION 2: Congress’s power to regulate Commerce does not extend to activity within a state, whether or not it affects interstate commerce; nor does it extend to compelling an individual or entity to participate in commerce or trade.
Levin presents historical evidence that clearly shows the original intent of the Commerce Clause by the constitution's framers was to enumerate to Congress power to make trade among the autonomous and sovereign States easier, freer, smoother and more regular. In the current lexicon, consider freer trade to mean an international free trade agreement among the several States, such as NAFTA. It was NOT to enumerate and thus allow them to intervene in private economic activity: in any transaction or any marketable product or service anywhere that they believe to be fair game.
Levin also cites evidence that commerce was very important in the early days of the country, catalyzed the Constitutional Convention, and freeing it was used to rally state support for the Constitution. Many of the framers including Madison were critical of the Articles of Confederation's oversight in protecting free trade. For example, states with navigable ports extracted taxes from neighboring states whose merchants were exporting goods. Also, states taxed imported goods from other states, at rates higher than from foreign countries.
Levin points out the prior bulwark of protection for economic freedom.
For over a century, the Supreme Court respected free commerce and the true meaning of the Commerce Clause. It rejected State or Congressional attempts to impede trade or related supporting activities, such as navigation of waterways. Even during the New Deal era and FDR's socialist attempts to centrally plan a recovery from the Great Depression, act after act passed by Congress were rejected by the Court. FDR struck back by threatening to pack the court, and "by replacing retiring justices with lawyers who shared his contempt for the constitution's enumeration of limited federal powers." As many in addition to Levin have pointed out, economic freedom and its protection is indispensable to achieving political and civic freedom.
Sadly for our country and our free people, these authoritarian and tyrannical pressure tactics worked, and the Supreme Court failed to protect our constitution and states' rights, and they changed course. Levin cites many episodes and cases, beginning in 1937. The 
Court ruled in Jones v Laughlin Steel Corp that intrastate activities are intertwined with interstate commerce and burdens and obstructions are within Congress's power to regulate. In an infamous watershed case, Wickard v Filburn in 1942, an Ohio dairy farmer lost the ability to decide how much and how to use the wheat crop that he grew and sometimes sold (above a federal quota) within his own state. The wrongheaded logic in this decision: that this farmer's private business decision potentially impacts all of wheat commerce nationally, and it can thus be regulated by the feds. And with that, an onslaught began. Abomination after abomination followed, completely abandoning any semblance of jurisprudential integrity and common business sense, including 1968 Maryland v Wirtz, and 1971 Perez v. United States. Only rarely did the Court rule that the Commerce Clause was a bridge too far as a means to govern us. The capstone (per Levin when writing in 2013) and icing on the poisonous cake (my words) was the 2008 Obamacare case. Four justices were prepared to use the Commerce Clause of the Constitution so that individuals could be fined by the government for not purchasing an insurance product they didn't want or need.
Since 1937 all three branches of the federal government have openly and unconstitutionally colluded to rewrite the constitution without amendment. They have bulldozed the states' and We the People's sovereignty over free, private, economic activity. Is It any wonder that the swamp in DC thinks it can dictate to us the types, locations, or vendors from whom we can buy light bulbs, cars, stoves, insurance, loans, and hundreds of other products and services? And has legions of unelected bureaucrats foisting their commercial will on us and trampling on our freedom and liberties as consumers? Is the estimated $3 trillion in costs of federal regulation (per NAM), which equate to 12% of all economic activity, and average $50,000 of costs incurred per small manufacturing firm, worth the benefits? For some regulations, such as the Clean Air Act, even asking about costs for benefits of proposed policy changes is disallowed or grounds for disciplining from the administrative state bureaucracy. 
Is this the treatment and open dialog that We the People deserve from those who allegedly serve us and secure our liberty, including our economic freedom? To Levin and me, it isn't.
With your support, an Article V Convention of States can rein this in, by proposing an amendment to promote free enterprise similar to Levin's. Please sign the petition at conventionofstates.com today. And volunteer to get involved in a grassroots movement advocating for a solution as big as the problem in DC.
