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by Steve Chapman
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All newspaper editors want to know what their readers like. If you would like to read this feature in your local newspaper, please do not hesitate to share your enthusiasm with your local newspaper editor.
RELEASE: SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2004
DAMMING THE FLOW OF WINE ACROSS STATE BORDERS
Life in New York involves many frustrations that can drive a person to drink. But stressed-out Gothamites seeking solace in the bottle may find they don't have their choice of bottles. New York does not allow residents to order wine from out-of-state wineries. So if they happen across a heavenly Cabernet while traveling through the hinterlands, they may be out of luck upon returning home.
The Supreme Court recently agreed to consider whether the ban is tolerable in an age when you can buy just about anything you want, from anywhere you want, over the phone or the Internet. The court may be tempted to decide that, in our modern economy, the freedom of buyers and sellers to transact business across state lines ought to trump other concerns.
But it should resist the urge. There is one thing more important than economic freedom at stake in this case: preserving the powers of states specified in the Constitution. To strike down the New York law, the court would have to ignore a constitutional mandate that may be inconvenient but is not unclear.
About half the states have laws against the direct shipment of wine by out-of-state suppliers. At the same time, many of the same states, including New York, allow such sales from in-state producers.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two small vintners, one in Virginia and one in California, by a libertarian legal group called the Institute for Justice. It portrays the policy as a transparent favor to New York wineries, shielding them from competition with out-of-state vintners who might be better able to satisfy New York's many drinkers. It also sees the ban as an intolerable affront to the Constitution, which was meant to eliminate barriers to interstate commerce.
In both respects, it has a point. A study by the Federal Trade Commission found that consumers enjoy lower prices and wider selection when they're allowed to buy directly from wineries. Savings range from eight to 21 percent on wines costing more than $20 a bottle. Even the biggest liquor store can offer only a tiny fraction of the wines available online.
The bans do amount to state-constructed barriers to interstate commerce. Americans have long enjoyed what Europeans have achieved only recently -- a broad common market -- because states may not inflict tariffs or other burdens on goods coming across their borders. If New York outlawed direct sales of shirts or sporting goods by out-of-state companies, the ban would last about as long as it would take for an irate lawyer to sprint to the courthouse.
But under our Constitution, alcohol is different. In 1919, we passed the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, import, sale or transport of "intoxicating liquors" anywhere in the United States. Prohibition turned out to be one of the most conspicuous failures in American history. So in 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified, repealing the 18th.
The new policy, though, didn't restore the old status quo. It required a compromise with anti-alcohol forces, which insisted on making sure states could enforce their own preferences. The new amendment assured each state control over "the transportation or importation" of alcoholic beverages "for delivery or use" within its borders.
What does that mean? It means states can do lots of things in this realm that they can't do elsewhere. In 1938, when the debate over undoing Prohibition was still fresh, the Supreme Court had to assess a Minnesota law placing an alcohol-content limit on liquor produced out-of-state, but not on liquor from in-state -- a policy that made absolutely no sense as a way of fostering sobriety.
The court upheld it anyway. Under the 21st Amendment, the justices ruled, state "discrimination against imported liquor is permissible" even if the law seems unreasonable. In 1964, the court reaffirmed that "a state is totally unconfined by traditional Commerce Clause limitations when it restricts the importation of intoxicants destined for use, distribution or consumption within its borders."
The critics think the court should overturn the law because New York's policy doesn't do any good in promoting responsible liquor use. But the text of the amendment doesn't say a state's control of liquor has to make sense. And if state powers spelled out so uncompromisingly in the Constitution can be diluted to the point of invisibility, we might as well not have states.
New York may not be acting wisely when it interposes itself between local wine drinkers and distant wineries. But the Supreme Court should see that it is acting constitutionally.
To find out more about Steve Chapman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. |
| Originally Published
on Sunday May 30, 2004 |
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