How the New Deal Diminished States Rights How did the New Deal change constitutional law?
First, it greatly expanded the scope of federal power relative to the powers of the states. Previously, federal efforts to revive the national economy and otherwise exert regulatory control over the nation’s commercial life were sometimes struck down by the Supreme Court as beyond the scope of Congressional power under Article I of the Constitution. However, by the end of the Roosevelt Administration, the Court had all but abandoned its role in policing these boundaries. The clearest example was the Court’s 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn, upholding an application of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, under the theory that a farmer’s decision to grow wheat but not to sell it (much less sell it across state lines) counted as interstate commerce that could be regulated by Congress. That decision remains very much alive; the Supreme Court relied on it in the 2005 case of Gonzales v. Raich in upholding federal regulation of marijuana grown to supply an intrastate medicinal market
