21st Amendment Violation.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Lebamoff Enterprises, Inc., et al v. Bruce V. Rauner, et al.

Case No.: 17-2495

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and KANNE and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 21st Amendment Violation

The Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution brought Prohibition to an end with a compromise: section 1 repeals the Eighteenth Amendment, but section 2 hands some power back to the states insofar as it forbids the "transportation or importation" of liquor into a state in violation of that state's law. This post-Prohibition compromise gives the states greater leeway to regulate alcoholic beverages than they enjoy with respect to any other product. But the Supreme Court has decided that this leeway is not boundless. Drawing lines that are sometimes difficult to follow, it has decreed that states may not infringe upon other provisions of the Constitution under the guise of exercising their Twenty-first Amendment powers.

It is quite possible that the Court's disposition of Tennessee Wine will affect the issue now before us. But the question in that case differs from the one now before us, and these differences often matter to the analysis. Our case involves the ability of companies to ship alcoholic beverages to consumers in Illinois; it does not directly address licensure for retail or wholesale establishments. Illinois allows retailers with an instate physical presence to ship alcoholic beverages to consumers anywhere within Illinois. The state refuses, however, to give out-of-state businesses the opportunity even to apply for a similar shipping license. The plaintiffs argue that this difference in treatment...