National League of Cities

                During the course of my research of the Tenth Amendment, one of the Supreme Court cases that I continuously encountered was National League of Cities v. Usery, so I decided to finally read up on that specific case.

                This case involves the Fair Labor Standards Act, which ruled that certain employers who fell within the bounds of the Act had to provide their employees with a minimum wage along with a 1.5x overtime pay for more than 40 hours worked per week. This seems common today, but when the case was decided, it was not. Eventually, the set of employers covered by the Act grew to include State and City employees. Thus, the National League of Cities got tired of this and sued in a District Court. The District Court ruled in favor of the defendant, but essentially stated that the Supreme Court would likely be interested in the case.

                It turns out they were.

                The Supreme Court did decide to hear the case. It ruled in favor of the National League of Cities. Essentially, the Court decided that even though Congress has the power to regulate commerce, even intrastate commerce if it affects interstate commerce enough, expanding which employers are covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act constituted a breach of the sovereignty of the States. The Law also hindered the States; examples were given of the Act costing employers thousands of dollars as well as having to decrease the number of hours of training programs (1).

                While I feel like it is a good thing that State sovereignty was upheld by this decision, I must say that I wonder why it was such a costly burden on the States to have to abide by the Act. If this is due to the minimum wage requirement, it seems like the states and/or cities were not paying their employees very much. However, other sources have suggested that restructuring to abide by the Act was also costly, so it might not have been only the minimum wage causing the problem (2).

                I kind of find it difficult to feel positively about this case when it essentially cuts down minimum wage for state/city employees. Perhaps what was under review was whether Congress could set a minimum wage for state employees across the nation, and the decision was that the minimum wage should be set by each individual state. However, the decision in this case was overruled by Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority a mere nine years later; this case state that employers, including state and local governments, should have a minimum wage (3). Therefore, I do not believe I misunderstood the premise of the National League of Cities case.

Webpages used:

1. "National League of Cities v. Usery - 426 U.S. 833 (1976)," Case syllabus and holding, with opinion by Mr. Justice Rehnquist, hosted by justia.com. Website not dated, accessed March 3, 2014, http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/426/833/case.html

2. "National League of Cities v. Usery," Wikipedia. Website last modified January 30, 2014, accessed March 3, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_of_Cities_v._Usery. Referred to by Brett Kissane. 

3. "Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority," Wikipedia. Website last modified January 30, 2014, accessed March 3, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garcia_v._San_Antonio_Metropolitan_Transit_Authority