Mike Lee: Federal Child Labor Laws Are Unconstitutional

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Mike Lee: Federal Child Labor Laws Are Unconstitutional
The Huffington Post Nick Wing First Posted: 01/14/11 11:35 AM Updated: 01/14/11 11:35 AM

Freshman Tea Party-backed Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently offered an provocative interpretation of the Constitution he holds so dear, arguing that federal child labor laws go beyond the bounds of the document.

Here's what Lee, a constitutional lawyer, had to say in a recent lecture about his view that the nation's founding political text had been fundamentally breached by (transcript via ThinkProgress):

Congress decided it wanted to prohibit (child labor), so it passed a law--no more child labor. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to that and the Supreme Court decided a case in 1918 called Hammer v. Dagenhardt. In that case, the Supreme Court acknowledged something very interesting -- that, as reprehensible as child labor is, and as much as it ought to be abandoned -- that's something that has to be done by state legislators, not by Members of Congress. (...)

This may sound harsh, but it was designed to be that way. It was designed to be a little bit harsh. Not because we like harshness for the sake of harshness, but because we like a clean division of power, so that everybody understands whose job it is to regulate what.

Now, we got rid of child labor, notwithstanding this case. So the entire world did not implode as a result of that ruling.