US Constitution Series, Amendment XXI

Amendment XXI. Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment

SEC. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

SEC. 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

SEC. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Section 1 is good, but section 2 has been the cause of a horrible patchwork quilt of state liquor laws, and has been thought to authorize discriminatory commerce practices otherwise invalid under the commerce clause.

In 2005, the Supreme court reigned in some of the patchwork craziness in Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460 (2005), holding,

States have broad power to regulate liquor under § 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment. This power, however, does not allow States to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers. If a State chooses to allow direct shipment of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms. Without demonstrating the need for discrimination, New York and Michigan have enacted regulations that disadvantage out-of-state wine producers. Under our Commerce Clause jurisprudence, these regulations cannot stand.

Wine lovers rejoiced!