George Will has some excellent questions ^[1] for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. 

Here’s an excerpt:

• The government having decided that Chrysler’s survival is an urgent national necessity, could it decide that Cash for Clunkers is too indirect a subsidy and instead mandate that people buy Chrysler products?

• If Congress concludes that ignorance has a substantial impact on interstate commerce, can it constitutionally require students to do three hours of homework nightly? If not, why not?

• Can you name a human endeavor that Congress cannot regulate on the pretense that the endeavor affects interstate commerce? If courts reflexively defer to that congressional pretense, in what sense do we have limited government?

• In Federalist 45, James Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.” What did the Father of the Constitution not understand about the Constitution? Are you a Madisonian? Does the doctrine of enumerated powers impose any limits on the federal government? Can you cite some things that, because of that doctrine, the federal government has no constitutional power to do?

It is unfortunate that Will’s column did not make the hard copy of today’s Washington Post.  (The column is dated today, but it’ll likely appear in his regular Sunday space.) Senators on the Judiciary Committee need to read this stuff.