No, Congress may not go "beyond its powers granted in the Constitution," as Representative Goodlatte insisted.
But in a pair of 5-to-4 decisions, in 1995 and 2000, the court invalidated two laws, saying the activities that Congress had sought to address — guns near schools and violence against women — were local and noncommercial and thus beyond its power in regulating interstate commerce.
This break from Congressional tradition had a polemical purpose: Representative Robert Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican who came up with the idea, remarked that "lots of my constituents have said that Congress has gone beyond its powers granted in the Constitution".
Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who came up with the idea for the reading, said, "Throughout the last year there has been a great debate about the expansion of the federal government, and lots of my constituents have said that Congress has gone beyond its powers granted in the Constitution".
But lawyers for 26 US states challenging the legislation say that Congress has gone beyond its powers by, for the first time in its history, requiring people to buy a product from the private sector.
In 1998 and 1999, reeling from the Monica Lewinsky case, he not only delivered fluent speeches, which many had thought beyond his powers in such a fraught situation, but also reframed the budget debate by telling the Republican tax-cutters: Save Social Security first.
Russia has gone way beyond its legal powers to use bases in the Crimea.
The path to recovery hinges on the federal government's expanding its powers well beyond normal limits in order to restart credit markets and guarantee stability of existing financial institutions.
Justice John Middleton dismissed Essendon's claims that there was anything "beyond power" in the joint investigation Asada undertook with the AFL.
