Sources used in this document:

The commerce clause, under Article I § 8 of the U.S. Constitution, gives Congress the right to control commerce among the several states (The Constitution of the United States of America, Article I § 8). Although here, there are not any federal statutes in place regarding truck hitches, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the language of the Commerce Clause contains a further, negative command prohibiting certain state regulation even when Congress has failed to legislate on the subject. This is evident in Quill Corp v. North Dakota [504 U.S. 298 (1992)] in which the Supreme Court determined that a tax levied on Quill Corp. violated the dormant commerce clause even though the subject matter was not federally pre-empted.

It is important to note that the 10th Amendment does give to the states all powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, but the dormant commerce clause (which is a court given name, not an actual enumerated element of the commerce clause) limits the powers given to the states under the 10th Amendment. In United States v. Lopez [515 U.S. 549 (1995)] the Supreme Court determined that state gun possession laws near school do not violate the dormant commerce clause because a state may regulate local aspects of interstate commerce as long as the local regulation does not conflict with, or is not pre-empted by, federal regulation and the regulation meets the following tests: (1) the regulation does not discriminate against out of state competition in order to benefit local economic interests, and (2) the incidental burden on interstate commerce does not outweigh the local benefits of the regulation.

The first determinant is whether Confusion's statute does affect interstate commerce. The Court in Wickard v. Filburn [317 U.S. 111(1942)] reasoned that state regulations of activities that on their face are not economic, if in their aggregate they have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, then they will have to pass the two part test listed above. Here, it can be argued that the statute is not economic on its face, but is instead based on state police power to protect the state highways. However, in aggregate, the effect of such regulation is that interstate truckers have to purchase a new hitch to go through Confusion, or must bear the extra gas expense of going around. Ultimately, the end-user will bear the extra cost expended by these truckers hauling products, by raised prices on those products. Thus the statute does have an economic effect. It is unclear whether the burden this substantial effect places on interstate commerce is outweighed by the benefit to Confusion's highways because this matter is a judgment call for the court. However, nonetheless,