An Unconstitutional Attempt to Use Fender Benders to Fuel the Expansion of Federal Power

Mike Fox

When the Framers devised our Constitution, they envisioned a federal government of finite, enumerated powers, expressly reserving all remaining authority to the states under the Tenth Amendment. Over the decades, however, aggressive expansions of the Commerce Clause have steadily eroded this division, drawing local matters into the net of federal law enforcement. To understand how a localized issue like staged auto fraud ends up as a federal crime, one must go to the historic Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.

For nearly a century, six-toed cats, rumored to be descendants of Ernest Hemingway’s polydactyl cat Snowball, have roamed the grounds as local icons. But in 2003, the US Department of Agriculture claimed that pursuant to the Animal Welfare Act—a law meant to regulate traveling circuses and zoos—the Hemingway Home is essentially a zoo, and the cats are functionally an exhibit. Applying an expansive view of the Commerce Clause, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that because the museum sells cat-themed merchandise and advertises to tourists online, the cats substantially affect interstate commerce, authorizing the federal government to regulate their living conditions. That ruling established a precedent where virtually any local activity could be regulated by Washington.

That same constitutional overreach is on full display with Senator Ashley Moody’s (R‑FL) Staged Accident Fraud Prevention Act. A companion bill has been introduced in the House by Representatives Mike Collins (R‑GA) and Brandon Gill (R‑TX). Introduced to combat the rise in staged collisions involving commercial vehicles, the bill makes it a federal crime to arrange or cause crashes involving commercial trucks, carrying severe prison terms and mandatory minimum sentences. 

While its end is noble—as staged collisions and insurance fraud are undeniably serious problems—the failure of states to adequately respond does not give rise to federal jurisdiction. And Senator Moody—a former Florida judge and attorney general—should know this. 

History bears this out. In the landmark 1995 case United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act, emphasizing that Congress does not possess a general federal police power. Like gun crime in school zones, intentionally causing a car crash is a quintessential state law crime. Attempting to convert these local offenses into federal crimes improperly usurps the general police powers our Constitution explicitly reserved to the states.

Proponents of the bill may argue that commercial vehicles operate in interstate commerce and that staged accidents raise nationwide insurance premiums. Yet this relies on the same attenuated economic reasoning applied to the Hemingway Home cats. If Congress can criminalize local traffic collisions simply because a delivery truck crosses state lines or affects insurance markets, then virtually any local traffic incident, property damage, or theft involving a commercial fleet becomes a federal crime.

State and local law enforcement officers, state prosecutors, and state judges are fully equipped to investigate and try staged-crash rings. While combating insurance fraud is a legitimate government priority, it properly resides with state legislatures—not the Halls of Congress. Continuing to stretch the Commerce Clause to cover local crimes chips away at the constitutional architecture meant to protect federalism. To preserve the balance of power established at the nation’s founding, Congress must leave local criminal law enforcement where the Framers rightly placed it: with the individual states.