United States v. Lopez’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
2,792 federal appellate · 488 district · 311 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,856 later decisions (111 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Ring v. Arizona (2002), United States v. Morrison (2000)
2,792 federal appellate · 488 district · 311 state decisions — followed in 36 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States v. Lopez (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Younger v. Harris · Consolidated Edison Co of New York v. National Labor Relations Board · Coleman v. Thompson · Wainwright v. Sykes
Cited together with United States v. Morrison · Wickard v. Filburn · Jones v. United States · Perez v. United States · Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 5,856 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress’ commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.”
477 later decisions quote this exact passage“nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise,”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage“activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.