Once More Unto the Treaty‐Power Breach
The Carol Anne Bond saga continues. Now in her second trip to the Supreme Court—and with Cato’s support for the fourth time—Bond is still hoping to avoid federal punishment stemming from her attempts to get back at her erstwhile best friend for having an affair with her husband.
Bond, a microbiologist, spread toxic chemicals on her friend’s car and mailbox. Postal inspectors discovered this plot after they caught Bond on film stealing from the woman’s mailbox. Rather than leave this caper to local law enforcement, however, a federal prosecutor reached into his bag of tricks and charged Bond with violating a statute that implements U.S. treaty obligations under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
Yes, rather than being charged with attempted murder and the like, Bond is essentially accused of chemical warfare.
Bond challenged the federal government’s power to charge her with a crime, arguing that Congress lacks constitutional authority to pass general criminal statutes and cannot somehow acquire that authority through a treaty. Before a court could reach this issue, however, there was a question whether Bond could even make that argument under the Tenth Amendment, which reaffirms that any powers not delegated to Congress are reserved to the states or to the people. On Bond’s first trip to the Supreme Court, the Court unanimously accepted the argument, offered in an amicus brief by Cato and the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, that there’s no reason in constitutional structure or history that someone can’t use the Tenth Amendment to challenge the constitutionality of the statute under which she was convicted.
On remand to the Philadelphia-based U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and now with standing to challenge that law, Bond raised the argument that Congress’s limited and enumerated powers cannot be increased by treaties. We again filed in that case in support of Bond. The Third Circuit disagreed, however—if reluctantly—based on one sentence written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1920 case of Missouri v. Holland, which has been interpreted to mean that treaties can indeed expand Congress’s powers. With Cato supporting her bid to return to the Supreme Court on that treaty power question, Bond’s case reached the high court.
Now, in a brief authored by professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz and joined by the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, the Atlantic Legal Foundation, and former attorney general Edwin Meese III—in what we hope will be our final filing in the case—we argue that a treaty cannot give Congress the constitutional authority to charge Bond. Allowing Congress to broaden its powers via treaties is an astounding manner in which to interpret a document that creates a federal government of limited powers.
Not only would this mean that the president has the ability to expand federal power by signing a treaty, but it would mean that foreign governments could change federal power by abrogating previously valid treaties—thus removing the constitutional authority from certain laws. This perverse result makes Missouri v. Holland a doctrinal anomaly that the Court must either overrule or clarify. We also point out how the most influential argument supporting Holland is based on a clear misreading of constitutional history that has been repeated without question.
Although Holland is nearly 100 years old, there is thus no reason to adhere to a precedent that is not only blatantly incorrect, but could severely threaten our system of government. We’re in a constitutional quagmire with respect to the treaty power, one that can only be escaped by limiting or overturning Missouri v. Holland.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Bond v. United States in October.
