Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States

Nearly all of the proposed programs that constituted the New Deal depended upon a broad reading of the government’s powers under the Constitution. After all, the Constitution does not expressly delegate to the federal government the power to regulate the banking industry, for example. In that case, how could laws that do be constitutional? In response to such questions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued in his First Inaugural Address that “the Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs.” The Roosevelt administration justified some of its programs under the government’s power to tax and others under the so-called necessary and proper clause of the Constitution. However, the administration justified most of its New Deal initiatives under article I, section 8, of the Constitution—the power to regulate interstate commerce.