The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on May 28 that a Colorado delivery franchisee was "engaged in interstate commerce," even though he never left the state, in a decision that constitutional scholar Rob Natelson suggests could signal a future rollback of Congress's sweeping economic powers. The case, *Flowers Foods v. Brock*, involved Angelo Brock, a franchisee who picked up Wonder Bread and other products sent into Colorado by Flowers Foods and delivered them to retail stores within the state. Writing for the Independence Institute on June 10, 2026, Natelson argues the court may have taken this straightforward case as preparation for narrowing Congress's authority over the national economy.
The case centered on whether Brock qualified for an exception to the Federal Arbitration Act, which allows workers "engaged in interstate commerce" to avoid mandatory arbitration of employment disputes. Brock argued he fit this exception because his deliveries were part of Flowers Foods's nationwide distribution network, even though his actual work never crossed state lines. The trial court agreed, the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed, and the Supreme Court unanimously upheld both decisions. The justices relied on the "current of commerce" doctrine, first established in 1905's *Swift & Co. v. United States*, which held that businesses serving as links in interstate commercial chains are engaged in interstate commerce even if their operations stay within one state.
According to Natelson, the Supreme Court's decision to hear *Flowers Foods* is puzzling because it was an "easy case" where all lower courts agreed and the outcome was supported by clear precedent. The court "generally doesn't take easy cases," he writes, typically reserving its docket for disputes where judges reach different conclusions or federal courts have split on similar facts. Natelson speculates that some justices may be preparing to use *Flowers Foods* as a contrast case—demonstrating what genuine interstate commerce looks like before overruling the 1940s decisions that "transmogrified" Congress's power to regulate commerce "among the several States" into authority over "the entire national economy."
Natelson explains that during the 1940s, the Supreme Court "under extreme political pressure, stopped enforcing the Constitution's economic limitations on Congress," allowing the federal government to dictate everything from household toilets to bedroom light bulbs. While Chief Justice William Rehnquist made "a few feeble efforts" to restore limits in the 1990s, the current Chief Justice John Roberts "has abandoned even those minor efforts" and shown "extraordinary deference to congressional pretensions." Natelson doubts the court's three liberal justices or Roberts would support curbing Congress's commerce power, but suggests five of the remaining justices might be ready to act. He notes that courts sometimes decide straightforward cases correctly before overruling past mistakes, using the proper decision as a reference point when the contentious case finally arrives.
The report frames *Flowers Foods* as potentially the beginning of a process to "reassert some constitutional control over a dysfunctional government's infinite appetite for power." Whether the Supreme Court will use this case as a stepping stone to limit congressional overreach remains uncertain, but Natelson believes the timing and the court's unusual decision to hear such a clear-cut dispute suggest at least some justices may be thinking about enforcing the Constitution's enumerated powers again.