Shreveport Rate Case
From Federalism in America
The Shreveport Rate Case (1914)—officially known as Houston, East and West Texas Railway v. United States—permitted the Interstate Commerce Commission to control intrastate railway rates if they bore “a close and substantial relation to interstate traffic.” This broad doctrine of the reach of federal authority under the Commerce Clause was later applied to manufacturing and other economic activities by the Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation (1937) and continues to dominate thinking about the Commerce Clause.
Ellis Katz
Last Updated: 2006
SEE ALSO: Commerce among the States