Later Applications
The clause has been paired with the Commerce Clause to provide the constitutional basis for a wide variety of federal laws. For instance, various reforms involved in the New Deal were found to be necessary and proper enactments of the objective of regulating interstate commerce.
Indeed, the influence of the Necessary and Proper Clause and its broader interpretation under McCulloch v. Maryland in American jurisprudence can be seen in cases generally thought to simply involve the Commerce Clause.
In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court upheld a federal statute making it a crime for a farmer to produce more wheat than was allowed under price controls and production controls, even if the excess production was for the farmer's own personal consumption. The Necessary and Proper Clause was used to justify the regulation of production and consumption.
Also, in addition to this combination of clauses being used to uphold federal laws affecting economic activity, they also were used to justify federal criminal laws. For example, Congress in the Federal Kidnapping Act made it a federal crime to transport a kidnapped person across state lines, because the transportation would be an act of interstate activity over which the Congress has power. It has also provided justification for a wide range of criminal laws relating to interference with the federal government's rightful operation, including federal laws against assaulting or murdering federal employees.
In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cannot be upheld under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his ruling that the mandate cannot "be sustained under the Necessary and Proper Clause as an integral part of the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms. Each of this Court’s prior cases upholding laws under that Clause involved exercises of authority derivative of, and in service to, a granted power. The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power and draw within its regulatory scope those who would otherwise be outside of it. Even if the individual mandate is “necessary” to the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms, such an expansion of federal power is not a “proper” means for making those reforms effective." David B. Kopel, an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Denver University, says this ruling returns the Necessary and Proper clause to its original interpretation outlined by John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland. He states that the clause grants Congress no additional powers, but "simply restates the background principle that Congress can exercise powers which are merely “incidental” to Congress’s enumerated powers." Kopel examples this by referring to Congress enumerated power to establish uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States. He says because Congress has been expressly given the power to establish the rules of bankruptcy by the Constitution, Congress can also enact laws against bankruptcy fraud.
Read more about this topic: Necessary And Proper Clause