I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine

Meet Senator Mike Lee (R - Company Store).

FSM, is there no limit to the idiocy of today's GOP? The newest Senator from Utah believes that child labor laws are unconstitutional!

Lee's "argument", as best I can tell, is that because manufacturing takes place in a single city and the workers live in that city that it does not constitute interstate commerce.

Are there really any truly local companies any more? Until a few years ago one may have argued that the company I work for, with a customer base, entirely in Chicago and the northern suburbs was a local company. That argument would be quickly dismissed though. The product we sell is purchased almost exclusively from out of state and out of country production facilities. We also employ people that live in Indiana. A few years ago when we were purchased by a Wisconsin company with customers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota we became an undisputed multistate company.

What about one of the icons of Made In America, Harley Davidson. Well, first of all, they are headquartered in Wisconsin but they have production facilities in several other states. Plus, some, albeit a small portion, of their parts are foreign made.

Let's look at an icon of local business, the corner bar.  The owner, patrons, and employees are likely all to live locally.  Where does their booze come from though?  Jack? Tennessee. Makers? Kentucky. Budweiser? Many states.


I defy anyone to find a truly local business any more?  Our country, our world, is completely interrelated anymore.  Commerce flows across local, state, country borders.  Clearly, based on the Commerce Clause, the congress has the right to regulate it and clearly that means they can regulate child labor.

And does anyone really want to return to the days of children dying in a fire because they were locked in a factory or are working in coal mines because their little bodies fit?

Via Balloon Juice via raw story.