Jurisdictional and Separation of Powers Strategies to Limit the Expansion of Federal Crimes

John S. Baker, Jr. (LSU), Jurisdictional and Separation of Powers Strategies to Limit the Expansion of Federal Crimes, 54 Am. U. L. Rev. 545 (2005)

Basically, new federal crimes are bad, just politically motivated. It's not really Congress's sphere to do these things. It's not entirely clear that his analysis of Morrison and Lopez gibes with mine / what I think is right, e.g. lots of references to "commercial," when I think he should really be saying "economic."

There is, on p.564, an expression of the idea that if the jurisdictional hook can't be proved, then the court should dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. That's great - that's a little bit of support for the syllogism, isn't it? And it's particularly great, because he just kind of assumes - it's just a relatively blithe statement, not really worked out, which is precisely what I want to support the idea that people just understand this. See also p. 565.

The only real use is in the paragraph above - I think I don't really understand Baker's argument, though.

Interesting references

John E. Nowak & Ronald D. Rotunda, Constitutional Law Section 3.3 (6th ed. 2000) - constitutional limitations on federal congressional power turn into limitations on court jurisdiction