Directions: Follow these directions very carefully. Failure to follow directions is likely to reduce your grade. This examination is due on at noon on February 25, 2013. Essays turned in after this date and time will receive a reduced grade.
Do not exceed a total of 600 words, including references or footnotes. When citing to legal sources, do not worry about proper legal citation format. Your exercise grade will not be affected by the use or non use of proper legal citation format.
Essays must be turned in using the Assignment function on Blackboard. Do not turn in your essay using email. Essays submitted by email might receive a reduced grade. If you do not know how to use the Blackboard Assignment function, please contact the Emory Help Desk. When creating the file for upload please name the file using the following convention: student ID, then a space, then the words "Writing Exercise 2." Example: "112233445 Writing Exercise 2." Also, please place your student ID number on your essay. Do not place your name on the essay or in the name of the file.
Submit your essay as a WORD file, printed in 11-point type, black on a white field, single-spaced with 1- inch margins.
You should base your answers only on materials assigned as readings or presented in class through Class 5. In your answers, cite only to these materials. This exercise does not require you to do any research beyond what was assigned as readings or presented in class. Inclusion of such research material is risky because it may be misquoted or misinterpreted. The instructors advise you not to include such materials.
Like many legal and policy questions, the questions you must answer for this examination do not have any right or wrong answers. Your answers will be graded on your use of structured reasoning and argument (for example, your analogies to cases), and clarity of writing, and not on which positions you take on the questions.
In answering the question, follow the principles set out in the class handout, "Draft Handout on Legal Reasoning and Writing," and subsequently discussed in class. Also, pay close attention to the feedback you received in class and individually on Writing Exercise Number 1. Be particularly careful not to not make up, create, or assume any facts in your essay; instead, use only the facts and rules provided in the question.
This is a take-home, open-book, open-computer exercise. However, all your answers should be solely your own work, in accordance with the rules of the School.
[Note: The following scenario is entirely fictional, intended to be used only as an educational tool, and is not intended to present real facts about any activity or any real policy of CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services. The scenario has not been approved by CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services.]
The Honorable Art Vandelay has been a member of the U.S. Congress for 10 years, representing the 12th District in South Caledonia. Through his career in the Congress he has been an advocate for the prevention of injuries. You are serving as Representative Vandelay's chief health legislative assistant at his Washington office on Capitol Hill. You are not a lawyer and do not have formal legal training, but you have taken an introductory course in public health law at a leading public health school in the United States.
Representative Vandelay has become increasingly concerned about the rising toll of morbidity and mortality from car-surfing in her district. For details about this dangerous practice, see In South Caledonia alone, the number of persons killed by participating in car surfing has increased four-fold over the past two years, and numerous injuries have also been reported.
Two weeks ago, the son of a close friend and political supporter of Rep. Vandelay was killed while car surfing.
Rep. Vandelay is considering introducing a bill in Congress to make car surfing illegal throughout the entire United States, with the purpose of reducing the number of associated deaths and injuries. He has drafted a bill, tentatively called the American Car Surfing
Prohibition Act (ACSPA), which would prohibit persons from participating in car surfing in the United States, punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and up to 30 days in federal prison.
The Congressman has asked you to write a memo of no more than 600 words (Members of Congress do not like to read long memos) on a specific point concerning the advisability of introducing the ACSPA into Congress as a bill. You decide to refer his request to one of the attorneys in the office but the attorneys are out on vacation for two weeks. So, you decide to write your own memo, and then ask the attorneys to review it when they return from vacation, before you give it to Rep. Vandelay.
Under the principles of federalism as expressed in the Raich case, and the federalism materials presented in class, and the assigned readings, would the ACSPA be found constitutional if it were challenged on grounds that it was not within the federal government's power under the Commerce Clause? First state your conclusion on this, and then give your reasoning.