National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation

Table of Contents

Overview

Context

About the Author

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Impact

Document Text

https://doi.org/10.3735/9781935306870.book-part-033

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Abstract

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 had been a cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. While the Supreme Court had invalidated other New Deal legislation because it required too broad a reading of the Constitution’s commerce clause, here Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes took a more expansive view despite those earlier precedents. The main constitutional issue here was whether Congress could regulate economic factors that only had an indirect effect on commerce, and Hughes accepted that justification. Doing so opened up many other possible areas for federal economic regulation under the commerce clause.