Mcnutt v. DOJ
Advancing American Freedom led a coalition of 19 other amici fighting against federal overreach in the form of an unconstitutional statute. McNutt v. Department of Justice is a challenge to federal statutory law that bans at-home distillation of spirits. Every law passed by Congress must be a legitimate exercise of one of its limited enumerated powers. After losing in the district court, the government is arguing in the Fifth Circuit that this ban is necessary as a means of enforcing its tax on the distillation of spirits. If the courts were to accept this argument, the Federal Government would be able to regulate any productive activity as long as the government could make the argument that without the regulation, people might evade the tax. Such a power would be totally contrary to the limited government created by the Constitution.
“Whether through the Commerce Clause or, here, through the Taxing Power, or otherwise, the Federal Government is constantly looking for ways to usurp the reserved power of the States and the people,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “This expansion of power, now exercised in large part by unaccountable bureaucrats in the administrative state, must be reversed if we are to have a ‘government of laws and not of men.’”
Read the full brief here.
