Full opinion text
FINAL ORDER OF DISMISSAL WILLIAM J. ZLOCH, District Judge. THIS MATTER is before the Court upon Defendant Edward Myers’s Motion To Dismiss Indictment (DE 18). The Court has carefully reviewed said Motion and the entire court file and is otherwise fully advised in the premises. Defendant Edward Myers is charged in a one-count Indictment (DE 7) with failure to comply with the registration requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 16901, et seq. & 18 U.S.C. § 2250 (2006) (hereinafter “SORNA”). He seeks to dismiss the Indictment on several grounds, the most compelling of which is that both § 2250 and the registration requirements found at § 16913 exceed Congress’s Commerce Clause power and are therefore unconstitutional. This Order centers upon the constitutionality of two statutes within the Adam Walsh Act. The thrust of the discussion centers on Congress’s Commerce Clause power, where the intricacies of the law are divorced from any value judgment as to whether and how society should protect itself from sex offenders. Sex offenders have undermined the decency once assumed in our fellow man and made us think twice before sending our children and grandchildren outside for a day of carefree play; they have paralyzed our families with fear. The crimes the Adam Walsh Act is meant to prevent are among the most heinous anyone can imagine. To that end, no lawful measure is too great and few punishments are too severe to protect society from sex offenders. While this sentiment reflects the undersigned’s personal feelings on the matter, it does not alter Congress’s inability to bring about a manifold good through means it has been denied by the Founding Fathers. See Keller v. United States, 213 U.S. 138, 144, 29 S.Ct. 470, 53 L.Ed. 737 (1909). I. Background In response to the growing incidences of convicted sex offenders perpetrating further sexual assaults, particularly against minors, Congress passed the Jacob Wet-terling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, Pub.L. 103-322, Title XVII §§ 170101, et seq., 108 Stat.2038 (1994) (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. §§ 14071, et seq.). It was passed as a federal funding statute that conditioned “federal law-enforcement funding on [each] state’s adoption of sex offender registration laws and set minimum standards for state programs.” Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 89-90, 123 S.Ct. 1140, 155 L.Ed.2d 164 (2003). These programs became commonly known as Megan’s Laws and were enacted on a state-by-state basis. Id. at 89, 123 S.Ct. 1140. The Jacob Wetterling Act and its later amendments did not impose federal criminal 'liability on individuals who violated a state’s Megan’s Law. The punishment was left to the states. 42 U.S.C. § 14071(d) (2006). Over the decade that followed passage of the Jacob Wetterling Act, crimes against minors became increasingly heinous and prevalent, and in response, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Pub.L. 109-248, 120 Stat. 587 (2006) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 18 & 42 U.S.C.) (hereinafter “Adam Walsh Act”). The Adam Walsh Act is a comprehensive statute, broken into seven Titles with each addressed to a different form of sexual exploitation and violent crime involving children. Title I is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, commonly known as SORNA. Two sections of SOR-NA are at issue in this Order: Pub.L. 109-248, §§ 113 and 141(a)(1) (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 16913 and 18 U.S.C. § 2250, respectively). Section 16913 outlines the registration requirements for those individuals considered sex offenders. Section 2250 gives these requirements teeth by imposing criminal liability on sex offenders who travel in interstate commerce and knowingly fail to register or update their registration. By enacting SORNA, Congress sought to establish a national sex offender registry that would aid local law enforcement in its effort to protect the public from sex offenders. 42 U.S.C. § 16901. It is structured to achieve this objective in two ways. First, it aims to increase the effectiveness of state sex-offender registries by eliminating the loopholes that accompany each state having its own unique registry system, 72 Fed.Reg. 8894-01 (Feb. 28, 2007), and replacing them with a single comprehensive system of federal registration requirements. 42 U.S.C. §§ 16912(a), 16914, et seq. Second, SORNA creates incentives and disincentives for those states that do not “substantially comply” with the same. Id. §§ 16925-16926. In this action, the Indictment alleges that between February 2, 2008, and March 10, 2008, Defendant traveled in interstate commerce and did knowingly fail, in violation of § 2250, to update his registration as required by § 16913. Defendant maintains that neither statute can be sustained under Congress’s Commerce Clause power. Specifically, he argues that Congress lacks the power to require all sex offenders to register under § 16913 and that § 2250 constitutes an impermissible attempt on the part of Congress to exercise police power reserved to the States. The Government rejoins, generally, that §§ 16913 and 2250 are licit exercises of Congress’s authority over persons in interstate commerce. Since SORNA was signed into law, many defendants have challenged various provisions as unconstitutional. Among the arguments raised in these challenges is that Congress exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause when it enacted SORNA, particularly §§ 16913 and 2250. At this time, one appellate court and over eighty district courts have addressed Congress’s authority to enact those provisions under its Commerce Clause power. See, e.g., United States v. May, 535 F.3d 912, 921-22 (8th Cir.2008) (upholding SORNA as constitutional); United States v. Mason, 510 F.Supp.2d 923, 931 (M.D.Fla.2007) (same); Tracy Bateman Farrell, Annotation, Validity, Construction, and Application of Federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 30 A.L.R. Fed.2d 213, § 18 (2008) (collecting cases) (hereinafter “Farrell, Validity of SOR-NA”). With the exception of three district courts, every court to consider the constitutionality of these provisions has found them a permissible exercise of congressional power. E.g., Farrell, Validity of SORNA, supra § 17. The courts sustaining challenges to these provisions have differed in their reasoning. For example, in United States v. Powers, the district court found that § 2250 did not regulate an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, and thus was beyond Congress’s commerce power. 544 F.Supp.2d 1331, 1335 (M.D.Fla.2008). In United States v. Way-bright, the court found that § 2250 was constitutionally licit as a regulation of “persons in interstate commerce,” but found that the registration requirement at § 16913, which § 2250 relies upon, exceeded Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. 561 F.Supp.2d 1154, 1163-64 (D.Mont.2008); see also United States v. Guzman, 582 F.Supp.2d 305 (N.D.N.Y. 2008) (holding the same). Against the great weight of persuasive authority on this matter, and for reasons other than those expressed in Powers and Waybright, the Court finds that both § 16913 and § 2250 exceed Congress’s grant of authority under the Commerce Clause. Specifically, § 16913 is a universal regulation of certain persons without any regard for their place or participation in interstate commerce, and it is not part of an overlying economic scheme, the regulation of which Congress could reasonably anticipate would affect interstate commerce. Contrary to Powers, the Court finds that by enacting § 2250 Congress did not attempt to regulate an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. Rather, the statute’s language regulates sex offenders who have traveled in interstate commerce. Congress, however, has no power to regulate a person simply because at some earlier time he has traveled in interstate commerce. Therefore, as more fully detailed below, the Court will grant the instant Motion To Dismiss Indictment (DE 18), and Defendant Edward Myers shall go hence without day. II. Standard of Review Defendant brought this Motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12, which provides that “at any time while the case is pending, the court may hear a claim that the indictment ... fails to invoke the court’s jurisdiction or to state an offense.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b)(3)(B). This includes a claim that the statute creating the offense is unconstitutional. United States v. Seuss, 474 F.2d 385, 387 n. 2 (1st Cir.1973) (citation omitted). Distilled to its essence, the Court’s analysis is simply a matter of determining whether the laws Defendant is charged with violating are unconstitutional. If they are, then the Indictment must be dismissed. In re Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 8-9, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883) (“It is obvious that the primary and important question in all the cases is the constitutionality of the law; for if the law is unconstitutional none of the prosecutions can stand.”). III. Background: The Commerce Clause Before turning to the question of whether Congress has the power to enact the statutes at issue, the Court must first clearly define the power that Congress has historically had and to this day enjoys over interstate commerce. The history recounted in this. Section may at first appear superfluous. However, it is only a careful reading of the precise issues, holdings, and language of the cases discussed below that leads the Court to the conclusion it reaches today — one in opposition to many other federal courts. The import and holdings of the relevant caselaw are too often ignored by courts looking to sum up the issues of federalism present in the seminal cases with a mere parenthetical; such pro-oftexting does little to fulfill the duties of this Nation’s federal courts. See Brannon P. Denning and Glenn H. Reynolds, Rulings and Resistance: The New Commerce Clause Jurisprudence Encounters the Lower Courts, 55 Ark. L.Rev. 1253, 1263-65 (2003). The need for a careful analysis of Congress’s Commerce Clause power as it pertains to the issues raised by SORNA is confounded by the near summary dismissals many courts have given the arguments raised in opposition to its constitutionality. The original criminal laws passed by Congress were enacted either to effect Congress’s enumerated powers under the Constitution or through its explicit authority to criminalize certain conduct. The former category includes treason and interfering with the mail, McCulloch v. Ma ryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 416-17, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), while the latter includes, for example, the power to criminalize counterfeiting and certain maritime offenses like piracy. U.S. Const, art I, § 8, cl. 6, 10. Congress’s ability to enact the former category of criminal prohibitions was seen as incidental to its enumerated power to regulate and act in those fields. McCulloch, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) at 417. Today, these original criminal statutes and later amendments make up a relatively small component of the overall federal criminal code, with most of the statutes being passed under the Commerce Clause. Adam H. Kurland, First Principles of American Federalism and the Nature of Federal Criminal Regulation, 45 Emory L.J. 1,1-15 (1996). A. The Precedent Any study of a constitutional question must begin with the text. The federal Constitution grants Congress the exclusive power “[t]o regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” U.S. Const, art I, § 8, cl. 3. The study of Congress’s power to regulate commerce among the several states quickly drifts from the Clause’s text to its treatment in Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). In Gibbons, the Court’s analysis of the Commerce Clause focused on the context of its adoption and the breadth of authority it granted Congress. First, the Commerce Clause served to cure a major flaw of the Articles of Confederation: the inability of the national government to coordinate trade and commerce among the states. Id. at 183-89, 192-96; see also Robert H. Bork and Daniel E. Troy, Locating the Boundaries: The Scope of Congress’s Power To Regulate Commerce, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 849, 855-60 (2002). Second, the Commerce Clause did not effect a total grant of power to Congress, but a particular form of authority over commerce: “Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations .... ” Gibbons, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 189-90. To the extent this commercial intercourse takes place between the states, Congress may regulate it. This power to regulate, however, does not extend to commerce that “is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States.” Id. at 194. Based on the natural limits of the power entrusted to Congress in the Clause’s text, the Court observed that “[t]he enumeration presupposes something not enumerated; and that something, if we regard the language, or the subject of the sentence, must be the exclusively internal commerce of a State.” Id. at 195. Over fifty years after Gibbons, Congress passed the Anti-Lottery Act of 1895, ch. 191, 28 Stat. 963 (1895) (codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1302), which prohibited the carrying of lottery tickets across state lines. The statute was challenged in Champion v. Ames (The Lottery Case), 188 U.S. 321, 23 S.Ct. 321, 47 L.Ed. 492 (1903), and the Court upheld the prohibition as a permissible use of Congress’s Commerce Clause power. Id. at 354, 23 S.Ct. 321. In The Lottery Case, the Court looked to the construction given the Commerce Clause in Gibbons and held that Congress’s authority over commerce includes the power to free the channels of interstate commerce from articles it deems harmful. Id. at 362, 23 S.Ct. 321 (noting “Congress may arbitrarily exclude from commerce among the states any article, commodity, or thing, of whatever kind or nature, or however useful or valuable”). This included the power to prohibit the carrying of lottery tickets in interstate commerce. Id. (noting that “in order to suppress lotteries carried on through interstate commerce, Congress may exclude lottery tickets from such commerce”). In The Lottery Case, the Court’s reasoning centered on the fact that Congress could not directly legislate against lottery tickets in all states and at all times. But it was well within its power to proscribe the travel or transportation of lottery tickets across state lines. Id.; James Clark Distilling Co. v. W. Md. Ry. Co., 242 U.S. 311, 326-27, 37 S.Ct. 180, 61 L.Ed. 326 (1917) (employing the same reasoning to sustain Congress’s power to prohibit the shipment of intoxicants into a state in violation of state law); see also Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U.S. 45, 58, 31 S.Ct. 364, 55 L.Ed. 364 (1911) (referring to such articles as “outlaws of commerce”). In that way it defeats the evil attached to the lottery tickets. Thus when Congress regulates the channels of interstate commerce, it is not regulating the local activity attached to it, but the travel of some article or person between state lines. This principle was prominently applied in cases upholding the White Slave Traffic (Mann) Act, ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825 (1910) (codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421-2424), which made it unlawful to bring an underage woman across state lines to engage in certain immoral activities. Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308, 33 S.Ct. 281, 57 L.Ed. 523 (1913) (prostitution); Athanasaw v. United States, 227 U.S. 326, 33 S.Ct. 285, 57 L.Ed. 528 (1913) (debauchery); Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442 (1917) (concubinage). In Hoke, the Supreme Court held that “if the facility of interstate transportation can be taken away from the demoralization of lotteries, the debasement of obscene literature, the contagion of diseased cattle or persons, the impurity of food and drugs, the like facility can be taken away from the systematic enticement to and the enslavement in prostitution and debauchery of women.” Hoke, 227 U.S. at 322, 33 S.Ct. 281 (discussing United States v. Popper, 98 Fed. 423 (N.D.Cal.1899); The Lottery Case, 188 U.S. at 357, 23 S.Ct. 321; Reid v. Colorado, 187 U.S. 137, 23 S.Ct. 92, 47 L.Ed. 108 (1902)). The focus in Hoke, like the cases it cited, was not on the ability of Congress to regulate the local activity that took place once the person ceased traveling in interstate commerce. Instead, it relied on Congress’s power to regulate the person’s use of the channels of interstate commerce by forbidding such travel with the proscribed purpose or intent. Id. at 321-22, 33 S.Ct. 281; see also Caminetti, 242 U.S. at 491, 37 S.Ct. 192 (noting this act “seeks to reach and punish the movement in interstate commerce of women and girls with a view to the accomplishment of the unlawful purposes prohibited”) (emphasis added); Hoke, 227 U.S. at 323, 33 S.Ct. 281 (“It may be that Congress could not prohibit in all of its conditions its sale within a state. But Congress may prohibit its transportation between the states, and by that means defeat the motive and evils of its manufacture.”) (emphasis added). As automobiles became prevalent in American society, their use frustrated the states’ suppression of local crime. Tracy W. Resch, The Scope of Federal Criminal Jurisdiction Under the Commerce Clause, 1972 U. Ill. L.Rev. 805, 806. In response, Congress passed several statutes that criminalized traveling in interstate commerce to commit certain acts: the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 10, 2311-2313 (making it a crime to travel in interstate commerce with a stolen vehicle), the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1201-1202 (making it a crime to bring a victim of kidnapping across state lines), the Fugitive Felon Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1073 (making it a crime to travel in interstate commerce with the intent to avoid prosecution), and the National Stolen Property Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2311, 2314-2315 (making it a crime to travel in interstate commerce with stolen property); 18 U.S.C. § 1231 (traveling in interstate commerce to engage in strikebreaking). In each of these statutes, the person’s travel across state lines with the particular intent or object is what Congress sought to regulate. By criminalizing the use of the channels of interstate commerce to facilitate these crimes, Congress was faithful to its powers described in Gibbons as concerning “intercourse between the states.” 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 193-94. In upholding the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, the Supreme Court reasoned that “Congress can certainly regulate interstate commerce to the extent of forbidding and punishing the use of such commerce as an agency to promote immorality, dishonesty or the spread of any evil or harm to the people of other states from the state of origin.” Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432, 437, 45 S.Ct. 345, 69 L.Ed. 699 (1925) (citing and discussing The Lottery Case, 188 U.S. at 358, 23 S.Ct. 321; Hoke, 227 U.S. at 323, 33 S.Ct. 281; Caminetti, 242 U.S. at 486, 37 S.Ct. 192). By prohibiting this use of the channels of interstate commerce, the Court reasoned, “[Congress] is merely exercising the police power, for the benefit of the public, within the field of interstate commerce.” Id. (emphasis added) (citing Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U.S. 196, 215, 5 S.Ct. 826, 29 L.Ed. 158 (1885)); see also Ky. Whip & Collar Co. v. Ill. Cent. R.R. Co., 299 U.S. 334, 347, 57 S.Ct. 277, 81 L.Ed. 270 (1937) (holding the same, even when the person or thing so regulated appears to be innocuous). ' In the 1920s and 30s, large criminal syndicates began wreaking havoc on American society, and Congress responded accordingly. Harry S. Toy & Edmund E. Shepard, The Problem of Fugitive Felons and Witnesses, 1 Law & Contemp. Prob. 415, 415 (1934). Congress passed the Anti-Extortion Act of 1934, ch. 300, 48 Stat. 781 (1934) (codified as amended and revised at 18 U.S.C. § 875), and the Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, ch. 569, 48 Stat. 979 (1934) (current version at 18 U.S.C. § 1951), to address the then-growing problem of organized crime in America. A Note on the Racketeering, Bank Robbery, and “Kiclo-Back” Laws, 1 Law & Con-temp. Prob. 445, 446-48 (1934); see also United States v. Pennell, 144 F.Supp. 317, 318-19 (N.D.Cal.1956) (noting the history and revisions to the Anti-Extortion Act). The Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934 differed significantly from the Mann Act and the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, to name two examples. Where previously Congress criminalized the travel of persons or things through the use of the channels of interstate commerce, this statute went a step further and reached the full extent of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. It criminalized the commission of certain delineated acts that were “in connection with or in relation to any act in any way or in any degree affecting trade or commerce or any article or commodity moving or about to move in trade or commerce.” United States v. Local 807 of Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 315 U.S. 521, 524, 62 S.Ct. 642, 86 L.Ed. 1004 (1942) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 420(a) (1940)). The subtle difference in the Anti-Racketeering Act’s text from merely regulating persons or things “in interstate commerce” to regulating activities “affecting commerce” is profound. Federal law enforcement was no longer confined to combating crimes that abused the channels and in-strumentalities of interstate commerce or were within the exclusive purview of Congress. Instead, the criminal conduct could be of a local nature, and all the government had to establish was “that the extortion or the conspiracy to extort be of such a nature that it affects interstate commerce in some degree.” United States v. Malinsky, 19 F.R.D. 426, 428 (S.D.N.Y.1956). Thus, federal law enforcement agents began to aid the states in the suppression of local crime if the same affected interstate commerce “in any way or degree.” Id. (quotation omitted). Although the Anti-Racketeering Act was later amended into its present form, commonly referred to as the Hobbs Act, the ability of Congress to criminalize conduct merely “affecting commerce” under the Act was sustained in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218-19, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960). At the time these acts were passed, Congress had already extended its Commerce Clause power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce in commercial regulations. See N.L.R.B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942). However, the Anti-Racketeering Act marked the first time that Congress used its power over activities that affect interstate commerce to punish crime. See A Note on the Racketeering, Bank Robbery, and “KickBack” Laws, supra at 447. With the Supreme Court’s approval of the broad power to regulate conduct that affected interstate commerce, Congress was no longer moored to the literal limits sketched in Gibbons for congressional enactments. Now, Congress began using its power under the Necessary and Proper Clause with the Commerce Clause to implement criminal regulations. See Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 34, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (“Congress’s regulatory authority over intrastate activities that are not themselves part of interstate commerce (including activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce) derives from the Necessary and Proper Clause.”). The decades that followed the Anti-Racketeering Act brought further and further federal regulation over criminal activities. Note, The Proposed Federal Criminal Code: An Unwarranted Expansion in Federal Criminal Jurisdiction, 39 Oh. St. L.J. 132, 141-156 (1978). With this expanding Federal regulation, Congress increasingly invoked its power to criminalize activities that are not simply “in commerce” but those that affect interstate commerce. In the early 1950s, Congress sought to stem the flow of revenue from legal and illegal gambling proceeds to organized crime in America. To aid law enforcement in this fight, Congress passed the Johnson Act, ch. 1194, 64 Stat. 1134 (1951), (codified at 15 U.S.C. §§ 1171-1177). Under the Johnson Act, dealers and holders of gambling devices had to register with the Attorney General regardless of whether the devices were shipped in interstate commerce, or the dealer engaged in or affected interstate, .commerce. When the statute was challenged, the Government maintained that “the statute, literally read, reaches all dealers and transactions and the possession of all unreported devices without reference to interstate commerce.” United States v. Five Gambling Devices, 346 U.S. 441, 445, 74 S.Ct. 190, 98 L.Ed. 179 (1953) (opinion of Jackson, J.). The Supreme Court did not reach the constitutional issues raised; rather, six justices, in two plurality opinions, voted to uphold the district courts’ dismissals of the indictments, but for different reasons. Id. at 446, 74 S.Ct. 190 (“We do not intimate any ultimate answer to the appellees’ constitutional questions other than to observe that they cannot be dismissed as frivolous, nor as unimportant, to the nature of our federation.”); see also id. at 452, 74 S.Ct. 190 (opinion of Black, J.). To avoid the constitutional questions, Justice Jackson read the act as applying to solely interstate activities. Id. at 448-52, 74 S.Ct. 190 (opinion of Jackson, J.). Justice Black, on the other hand, opined that the Act was meant to apply, albeit impermissibly, to local, intrastate activity. See id. at 452, 74 S.Ct. 190 (“I do not feel at liberty to read intrastate sales out of the Act, even if constitutional questions could thereby be avoided.”) (opinion of Black, J.). While the Supreme Court’s holding in Five Gambling Devices did not address whether Congress’s authority reached all gambling devices irrespective of their place in or effect on interstate commerce, Justice Jackson, writing for three justices, did make an observation that directly addresses Defendant’s instant challenge to § 16913. He noted: No precedent of this Court sustains the power of Congress to enact legislation penalizing failure to report information concerning acts not shown to be in, or mingled with, or found to affect commerce. The course of decision relied on by the Government on analysis falls short of the holding asked of us here. Indeed, we find no instance where Congress has attempted under the commerce power to impose reporting duties under penal sanction which would raise the question posed by these proceedings. Id. at 446, 74 S.Ct. 190 (opinion of Jackson, J.) (citing many of the cases and statutes discussed above). Later, the same opinion noted that the Government’s interpretation of the Johnson Act as reaching all conduct regardless of its place in or affect upon interstate commerce would lead to the “most extreme impact upon affairs considered normally reserved to the states.” Id. at 450. Five Gambling Devices was authored long after cases like NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel and Wickard v. Filburn solidified the New Deal. Thus, the idea that Congress’s Commerce Clause power stretched into purely intrastate activity was not novel. It was accepted and universally applied, but six members of the Court still refused to affirm the expansive reach Congress’s power took in the Johnson Act. Little has changed since Five Gambling Devices, and the criminal regulations that followed took three notable positions. First, Congress has maintained its plenary authority to regulate the channels and in-strumentalities of interstate commerce. Second, Congress has continued to regulate local, intrastate activities that it finds have a substantial affect on interstate commerce. See, e.g., Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 154, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971) (affirming Congress’s power to regulate local loan-sharking activities based on the “class of activities” that substantially affect interstate commerce); see also Resch, The Scope of Federal Criminal Jurisdiction Under the Commerce Clause, 1972 U. Ill. L.Rev. at 806. The third is unlike the other two and it involves the ability of Congress to criminalize the possession of firearms by convicted felons and the forcible taking of an automobile, so long as the weapon or vehicle has at one time traveled in interstate commerce. Scarborough v. United States, 431 U.S. 563, 576, 97 S.Ct. 1963, 52 L.Ed.2d 582 (1977) (upholding the felon in possession statute, then at 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a)); United States v. Williams, 51 F.3d 1004, 1008-09 (11th Cir.1995) (upholding the federal carjacking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2119). In Scarborough v. United States, the defendant, a convicted felon, was convicted under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197 (1968) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 5,18, & 42 U.S.C.) for possessing firearms after having been previously convicted of a felony. The defendant challenged his conviction by arguing that proof that the guns had “at some time” traveled in interstate commerce did not provide an adequate nexus between his possession and interstate commerce. 431 U.S. at 565-66, 97 S.Ct. 1963. The Court rejected his argument and upheld the conviction because the Government had proved an adequate nexus with interstate commerce by showing that the firearm had at some time previously moved in interstate commerce. Id. at 565, 97 S.Ct. 1963; see also id. at 577, 97 S.Ct. 1963 (noting “Congress sought to reach possessions broadly, with little concern for when the nexus with commerce occurred”). Thus, the felon-in-possession statute criminalized the mere possession of a firearm by a criminal so long as the firearm at sometime traveled in or affected interstate commerce, thereby creating a “minimal nexus” with interstate commerce.' Id. at 575, 97 S.Ct. 1963. The temporal proximity between the possession and the travel of the firearm in interstate commerce was ruled inconsequential. Id. ■ at 577, 97 S.Ct. 1963; Brent E. Newton, Felons, Firearms, and Federalism: Reconsidering Scarborough in Light of Lopez, 3 J.App. Prac. & Process 671, 683-84 (2001) (noting the constitutionally tenuous nexus between interstate commerce and the possession of a handgun). Further, the Defendant need not have procured the firearm through interstate commerce. As one court observed: “Scarborough’s legal fiction .... is indelible and lasts as long as the gun can shoot. Thus, a felon who has always kept his father’s World War II trophy Luger in his bedroom has the weapon ‘in’ commerce.” United States v. Coward, 151 F.Supp.2d 544, 549 (E.D.Pa.2001). The cases discussed above lead us to this point: The days of Gibbons and its natural and textually based constitutional limits on congressional power have long since passed. See United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 584, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[0]ur caselaw has drifted far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause.”). Hope is not lost, however, as recent Supreme Court precedent has begun again to enforce some limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause power. The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), marked the first time in over fifty years that the Court struck down a congressional act passed under the Commerce Clause. The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, Pub.L. 101-647 § 1702, 104 Stat. 4844 (1990) (formerly codified at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)(A)) (hereinafter “GFSZA”), made it a crime for an individual to knowingly possess a firearm at a place the individual reasonably should know is a school zone. Before addressing the constitutionality of the GFSZA in Lopez, the Supreme Court summarized the past century of Commerce Clause jurisprudence. It identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate with recourse to the Commerce Clause: 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, ie., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (citations omitted). The first two categories embody Congress’s traditional power to regulate commerce. See Raich, 545 U.S. at 34-35, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (“The first two categories are self-evident, since they are the ingredients of interstate commerce itself.”). By the GFSZA’s text, neither of these categories were implicated. The third category represents the fullest extent of Congress’s power to regulate commerce; it attaches to actions that have a substantial affect on interstate commerce, even though they may be local, non-economic activities. Id.; United States v. Am. Building Maintenance Indus., 422 U.S. 271, 280, 95 S.Ct. 2150, 45 L.Ed.2d 177 (1975) (observing that when Congress regulates behavior that substantially affects interstate commerce, it is asserting its “full Commerce Clause power”). In the third, “fullest extent” category, the Lopez Court recognized that “even ... modern-era precedents which have expanded congressional power under the Commerce Clause confirm that this power is subject to outer limits.” 514 U.S. at 556-57, 115 S.Ct. 1624. The Court summarized the holdings in Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971), Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964), and Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), as standing for the proposition that where purely local activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 560, 115 S.Ct. 1624. Despite this, the Court found that the GFSZA, which prohibited the possession of all firearms in school zones, had “nothing to do with commerce or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms.” Id. at 561. Relying heavily on the non-economic character of the regulated activity of possessing a firearm in a school zone, and the lack of congressional findings supporting any effect on interstate commerce, the Court struck down the GFSZA as unconstitutional. Several years after Lopez, in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000), the Court addressed whether a congressional act providing civil remedies for victims of gender-motivated violence was beyond the scope of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, Pub.L. 103-322, Title TV, §§ 4001, et seq., 108 Stat.1902 (1994) (hereinafter “VWA”), provided a federal cause of action for anyone made a victim of a crime motivated by gender. 42 U.S.C. § 13981(c). The VWA did not have any jurisdictional language denoting the constitutional power it was invoking. By its terms, the VWA did not involve a regulation of the instrumentalities or channels of, or persons and things in, interstate commerce. Thus, it dealt only with the third Lopez category. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 609,120 S.Ct. 1740. In analyzing whether the VWA could properly be enacted under Congress’s Commerce Clause power, the Morrison Court looked to four factors it gleaned from Lopez to determine whether the conduct regulated by the VWA had a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Under Morrison, a court must determine 1) whether the statute in question regulates commerce “or any sort of economic enterprise”; 2) whether the statute contains any “express jurisdictional element which might limit its reach to a discrete set” of cases; 3) whether the statute or its legislative history contains “express congressional findings” that the regulated activity affects interstate commerce; and 4) whether the link between the regulated activity and a substantial effect on interstate commerce is “attenuated.” United States v. Maxwell, 386 F.3d 1042, 1056 (11th Cir.2004), (quoting United States v. McCoy, 323 F.3d 1114, 1119 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610-12, 120 S.Ct. 1740)), vacated, United States v. Maxwell, 546 U.S. 801, 126 S.Ct. 321, 163 L.Ed.2d 29 (2005). The Morrison Court addressed each factor in turn and found that the VWA merely aimed to regulate non-economic, violent criminal conduct; it purported to impose liability for all gender-motivated violence, not only that violence affecting interstate commerce. 529 U.S. at 613, 120 S.Ct. 1740. Though the VWA was buttressed “by numerous findings regarding the serious impact that gender-motivated violence has on its victims and their families,” 529 U.S. at 614, 120 S.Ct. 1740, the Court dismissed these findings as evidence that “the concern that we expressed in Lopez that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to- completely obliterate the Constitution’s distinction between national and local authority [was] well founded.” Id. at 615, 120 S.Ct. 1740. Based on its review of the statute, the Court found that the VWA did not regulate conduct having a substantial effect on commerce. Rather, it was a regulation of local conduct. In making such finding, the Court also “rejeet[ed] the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce.” Id. Five years after Morrison, the Supreme Court further defined Congress’s power to regulate local, intrastate activity in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005). The facts and the holding in Raich differed significantly from those in Lopez and Morrison. At issue was the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. §§ 801, et seq. (hereinafter “CSA”), a “comprehensive statute [designed to] provide meaningful regulation over legitimate sources of drugs to prevent diversion into illegal channels, and strengthen law enforcement tools against the traffic in illicit drugs.” Raich, 545 U.S. at 10, 125 S.Ct. 2195. Raich and others sued the Attorney General and Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking a permanent injunction against enforcement of the CSA against them. They argued that their intrastate production, distribution, and ingestion of marijuana for medicinal purposes was lawful under California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996, Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 11362.5 (2005), and that the “categorical prohibition of the manufacture and possession of marijuana as applied to intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana for medical purposes pursuant to California law exceeds Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause.” 545 U.S. at 15,125 S.Ct. 2195. In Raich, the Court drew heavily on the holding and analysis in Wickard and affirmed the principle that Congress can regulate purely local, non-economic activities “that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” Raich, 545 U.S. at 17, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (citations omitted). In doing so, Congress may regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” insofar as it is not produced for sale in the market, if it has a reasonable basis to conclude “that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.” Id. at 18, 125 S.Ct. 2195. The fact that only a small quantity of marijuana is consumed does not control whether Congress can regulate it. See id. at 17, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (noting that the de minimis character of individual instances is immaterial when a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce) (citation omitted). This permits Congress to regulate intrastate activity, whether economic or not, when it has comprehensively regulated an economic market that the challenged activity is part of. Id. Put another way, Congress may regulate intrastate, non-commercial activities so long as there is a reasonable basis to believe that its inability to regulate such an activity would undermine its ability “to implement effectively the overlying economic regulatory scheme.” United States v. Maxwell, 446 F.3d 1210, 1215 (11th Cir.2006). Under Raich, courts have a limited role in reviewing whether a “class of [non-commercial] activity ... undercuts] Congress’ unquestioned authority to regulate the broader interstate market.” Id. at 1215. The Court does not look at whether the regulated activity taken in the aggregate actually has a substantial effect on interstate commerce; rather, the Court looks to determine whether there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that it does. Raich, 545 U.S. at 22, 125 S.Ct. 2195; see also Maxwell, 446 F.3d at 1215 (recognizing that “Congress need only have a rational basis for [so] concluding”) (quotation omitted). Raich clearly sets forth the Court’s standard for reviewing congressional regulation of intrastate, non-economic actions that may affect a larger economic regulatory scheme. However, it does not set forth the standard applied to local, non-economic activity that is not part of a comprehensive regulation of interstate commerce. The majority in Raich went to great lengths to distinguish the facts of Lopez, which it described as dealing with “a brief, single-subj'éct statute making it a crime for an individual to possess a gun in a school zone.” Raich, 545 U.S. at 23, 125 S.Ct. 2195. It distinguished the “GFSZA” as “at the opposite end of the regulatory spectrum,” while the CSA is “a lengthy and detailed statute creating a comprehensive framework for regulating the production, distribution, and possession of five classes of ‘controlled substances.’ ” Id. at 24,125 S.Ct. 2195. B. The Present Here we are. With over a century of caselaw defining Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause to criminalize conduct, certain principles are clear; others are not. Among the standard principles that have not changed much since Gibbons and The Lottery Case is Congress’s power over what Lopez summarized as “the channels of interstate commerce” and its ability “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.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624. When Congress chooses to regulate those areas, it is using its traditional Commerce Clause power. Raich, 545 U.S. at 34, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (Sca-lia, J., concurring in the judgment). The precise limits of the third Lopez category concerning activities that substantially affect interstate commerce is not as clear. For all its analysis, Raich left this question unanswered: whether a statute not part of a larger scheme regulating an economic market is analyzed only under its framework or whether the four-factor test articulated in Morrison is still valid. See Maxwell, 446 F.3d at 1217 n. 6 (noting the “confusion that may arise from the now un-clear state of the four Morrison/Lopez factors post-Raich.”) Unfortunately, since Lopez was handed down courts have based much of their analysis on the literal language of the Lopez categories, rather than what they signify. The precise meaning of the Lopez categories cannot be derived by the plain meaning of the terms used. Instead, courts must look both to the cases Lopez cited in support of each category and the instances of congressional action sustained under each. Upon surveying the recent cases upholding SORNA, it is clear that the greatest area of confusion lies in the precise meaning of the first two Lopez categories. The first Lopez category states, “Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624. In support of this proposition the Court cites two cases, with a parenthetical quoting a third: United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 113-115, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941); Heart of Atlanta Motel, 379 U.S. at 256, 85 S.Ct. 348 (quoting Caminetti, 242 U.S. at 491, 37 S.Ct. 192). In Darby the Court upheld Congress’s ability to ban the interstate shipment of goods produced without minimum wage and maximum hour protections. Darby, 312 U.S. at 113-15, 61 S.Ct. 451. In Heart of Atlanta Motel, the Court ultimately upheld the public accommodation provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under Congress’s power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Heart of Atlanta Motel, 379 U.S. at 257, 85 S.Ct. 348. However, the pertinent part of the opinion cited by Lopez concerned Congress’s power to regulate persons in interstate commerce, through its regulation of the channels of interstate commerce to keep the channels “free from immoral or injurious uses.” Id. at 256, 85 S.Ct. 348 (quoting Caminetti, 242 U.S. at 491, 37 S.Ct. 192). In support of this proposition, the Court in Heart of Atlanta Motel cited Congress’s ability to ban the interstate shipment and travel of lottery tickets, women for immoral purposes, and stolen vehicles. Id. at 256-57, 85 S.Ct. 348 (citing The Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321, 23 S.Ct. 321; Caminetti, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192; Hoke, 227 U.S. at 320, 33 S.Ct. 281; Brooks, 267 U.S. 432, 45 S.Ct. 345) (further citations omitted). See also Darby, 312 U.S. at 113, 61 S.Ct. 451 (citing, inter alia, the same cases). Thus, the first Lopez category encompasses Congress’s ability to “exclude from the commerce articles whose use in the states for which they are destined it may conceive to be injurious to the public health, morals or welfare.” Darby, 312 U.S. at 114, 61 S.Ct. 451. In this way, by the first Lopez category Congress is regulating interstate commerce by barring from its channels a certain class of goods or people that it deems harmful. See United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 288-89 (3d Cir.1996) (Alito, J., dissenting) (describing the first Lopez category as concerning “Congress’s power to regulate, for economic or social purposes, the passage in interstate commerce of either people or goods”). By excluding certain persons from the channels of interstate commerce, the focus of the prohibition is on the person or thing’s movement across state lines with the proscribed purpose or status. Id. In Cami-netti, the proscribed activity was travel to become, or engage in the activities of, a prostitute. The law was not concerned with young women who, after crossing state lines, may later decide to become prostitutes; its focus is only on the use of the channels of interstate commerce to become one. All of the statutes that fall within the first category in Lopez maintain this jurisdictional character. United States v. Patton, 451 F.3d 615, 621 n. 3 (10th Cir.2006). Under the second Lopez category “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.” 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624. In support of this proposition, the Supreme Court in Lopez cited three cases, with the third citing two statutes: Houston, E. & W. Tex. Ry. v. United States (Shreveport Rate Cases), 234 U.S. 342, 34 S.Ct. 833, 58 L.Ed. 1341 (1914); Southern R.R. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20, 32 S.Ct. 2, 56 L.Ed. 72 (1911); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 32 (destruction of an aircraft) and § 659 (theft of interstate shipments)). In the Shreveport Rate Cases, the Court upheld the regulation of intrastate railroad rates on the theory that this regulation was needed to protect “the security of [interstate] traffic,” and “the efficiency of the interstate service.” 234 U.S. at 351, 34 S.Ct. 833. In the second case, Southern R.R. Co., the Court sustained certain federal safety regulations governing trains and railroad cars traveling intrastate on a railroad line. 222 U.S. at 27, 32 S.Ct. 2. In sustaining these regulations, the Court reasoned that the lack of appropriate safety appliances on intrastate trains and cars was a hazard to trains moving in interstate commerce. Id. at 27, 32 S.Ct. 2. Thus, to effectively regulate interstate trains — an instrumentality of interstate commerce— Congress may also regulate purely intrastate trains. With these two cases, the Court in Lopez also cited Perez and two of the statutes it cited as comprising this second category. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624, citing Perez, 402 U.S. at 150, 91 S.Ct. 1857 (citing-18 U.S.C. §§ 32, 659). At the time Perez was decided, § 32 made it a crime to damage or destroy an aircraft that was used in interstate commerce, while § 659 made it a federal crime to steal from interstate shipments. 18 U.S.C. §§ 32, 659 (1966). In United States v. Rybar, then-Circuit Judge Alito summarized these cases and statutes under the second Lopez category, noting that they exemplify the principle that Congress’s Commerce Clause authority reaches threats to “the instrumentalities” of interstate commerce, ie., the means of conveying people and goods across state lines, such as airplanes and trains. This power also reaches threats to people and goods traveling in interstate commerce, such as the theft of goods moving interstate and the setting of rates that could affect interstate trade. Rybar, 103 F.3d at 290 (Alito, J., dissenting). In this way, the second Lopez category embodies Congress’s authority to protect and regulate the instrumentalities and the people and “things that the instru-mentalities are moving.” United States v. Bishop, 66 F.3d 569, 598 (3d Cir.1995) (Becker, J., concurring in part dissenting in part); see also Patton, 451 F.3d at 622. The Supreme Court’s use of the formula “persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities” is addressed to Congress’s power to regulate and protect such persons from threats while traveling or about to travel in interstate commerce. It does not mean that once a person has traveled in interstate commerce a regulation is attached to him. See Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483, 491 (4th Cir.2000) (rejecting the argument that a wolf that has once moved in interstate commerce is forever a “thing in interstate commerce”). Indeed, “[t]he illustrative cases for [the second] category involve things actually being moved in interstate commerce, not all people and things that have ever moved across state lines.” Patton, 451 F.3d at 622 (emphasis added). While Congress’s traditional power under the first two Lopez categories has been standardized over the past century, .what has changed over that time is Congress’s ability to regulate local, intrastate activities having a substantial effect on interstate commerce. It is now and has always been clear that Congress’s power to regulate local, non-economic conduct is not limitless. See Gibbons, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 189. If nothing else, Lopez and Morrison affirm that- maxim. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 552, 556-57, 115 S.Ct. 1624; Morrison, 529 U.S. at 607, 120 S.Ct. 1740. What is less clear is how courts should analyze challenges to Congress’s power to regulate non-economic conduct in light of Raich. See Maxwell, 446 F.3d at 1217 n. 6 (noting the “confusion that may arise from the now un-clear state of the four Morrison/Lopez factors post-Raich”). Raich did not explicitly address how, if at all, it was- affecting the four-factor test from Morrison. Likewise, there is no clear direction from the Eleventh Circuit on how to approach this open question. Id. Raich is the governing law, and its holding cannot be ignored or minimized. However, a proper understanding of the Raich holding cannot be separated from the nature of the CSA it upheld. While there has been little guidance from the appellate courts on how Raich affects Lopez and Morrison, they can be distinguished by the nature of the statute that each case dealt with. In this way, Raich defines the reach that congressional power may take" over local activities when that regulation is part of a greater overall commercial regulation of an interstate market. When a statute is challenged under such a regulatory scheme, courts must give great deference to the findings of Congress and determine whether it had a reasonable basis to believe that the regulated activity will have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. On the contrary, Morrison and Lopez stand for the proposition that Congress may not regulate local, non-economic activities that do not have a substantial impact on interstate commerce; in making this determination the Court does not aggregate the instances of individual behavior. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615, 120 S.Ct. 1740. IV. Analysis The Court’s categorization of Raich and Lopez is its own, and without guidance from the Eleventh Circuit or Supreme Court, the Court will proceed in an abundance of caution and apply the tests in both Raich and Morrison to § 16913. Further, the Court will address the constitutionality of § 2250 under the traditional limits that have been attached to Congress’s Commerce Clause power. Additionally, in Part IV.B.3, the Court will address the Government’s brave new argument that this Court should apply the “minimal nexus” test used in Scarborough v. United States to Defendant’s travel under § 2250. A. Section 16913 A conviction for failure to register as a sex offender under § 2250(a) is predicated upon proof that a defendant was required to register under § 16913. 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a)(1) (“Whoever: is required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act ....”). In turn, § 16913 requires all persons defined as “sex offenders” in the United States to register in each jurisdiction where the offender resides, is a student, and is employed. Defendant argues that § 16913 exceeds Congress’s Commerce Clause power, because registration as a sex offender is a purely local, non-economic activity, and there is no overarching economic regulation that such a regulation would have a substantial impact upon. Any analysis of a challenged statute begins with its text and through its text the Court normally can determine both the power that Congress is attempting to exercise and whether it has been vested with such authority. Here, § 16913 states: “A sex offender shall register, and keep the registration current, in each jurisdiction where the offender resides, where the offender is an employee, and where the offender is a student.” 42 U.S.C. § 16913(a). Section 16913 particularly and SORNA generally are silent as to Congress’s invocation of constitutional authority. See United States v. Waybright, 561 F.Supp.2d 1154, 1164 (D.Mont.2008) (noting the statute does not have a jurisdictional element). In the face of this congressional silence the Government urges this Court to assume, and all other courts to consider the issue have assumed, that Congress has invoked its Commerce Clause power to enact § 16913. Without any other reasonable basis of authority, the Court will limit its analysis of § 16913 to Congress’s Commerce Clause power. See Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138, 144, 68 S.Ct. 421, 92 L.Ed. 596 (1948) (“The question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it undertakes to exercise.”). Like the regulation at issue in Five Gambling Devices, § 16913 simply requires all persons defined as sex offenders to register in each jurisdiction where they reside, are employed, or attend school. Thus, by this statute Congress is attempting to regulate purely intrastate activities. It may do so only through the full breadth of its Commerce Clause power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, commonly referred to as the third Lopez category. See Raich, 545 U.S. at 16-17, 125 S.Ct. 2195; Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. 1624. To determine whether a regulated activity has a substantial impact on interstate commerce, courts either engage in the foui’-part inquiry set forth by Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610-13, 120 S.Ct. 1740, or the analysis undertaken in Raich. As noted earlier, Raich has muddied the waters of Morrison and Lopez. At first glance, Raich seems inapplicable to § 16913 because the registration of sex offenders is not an economic activity. Nonetheless, Raich is a binding Supreme Court case and the Court will address the constitutionality of § 16913 against the analysis set forth therein and the one employed in Morrison. 1. Applying Raich Raich analyzed a regulation of local activity, possession of medical marijuana, in the context of a larger economic regulation, the Controlled Substances Act. Raich clearly spelled out the analysis to be employed in such instances; however, it did not address how courts are to frame the larger economic regulation. Here, § 16913 is a critical part of SORNA, and SORNA is one of the many pieces of legislation embodied in the Adam Walsh Act. In Waybright, the Court limited its analysis of § 16913 to SORNA alone and did not analyze its place and impact on the Adam Walsh Act. Waybright, 561 F.Supp.2d at 1163-65. In contrast, another district court that upheld the constitutionality of § 16913 framed the Raich analysis with reference to the larger Adam Walsh Act, including its regulation of child pornography. United States v. Passaro, CR 07-2308-BEN (S.D.Cal. Dec. 17, 2007) (cited in Waybright, 561 F.Supp.2d at 1164). In Raich, the question was whether Congress had a reasonable basis to believe that local consumption of marijuana interfered with its nationwide regulation of the market for controlled substances. Raich, 545 U.S. at 13-14, 125 S.Ct. 2195. It did not look at the smaller subparts of the CSA or how local marijuana consumption would affect Congress’s ability to regulate the market for marijuana alone. Id. at 14-15, 125 S.Ct. 2195. However, the actual language used by the Court refers to a particular commodity, not a particular class of commodities. Raich, 545 U.S. at 18, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (noting that “failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity”) (emphasis added). Thus, it is unclear where exactly the Supreme Court was headed. Therefore, in an abundance of caution the Court will analyze § 16913 in reference to both SOR-NA and the Adam Walsh Act as a whole, a. Section 16913 as Part of SORNA The immediate question is whether § 16913 is part of a broader economic regulation contemplated in SORNA. See Raich, 545 U.S. at 26, 125 S.Ct. 2195. In contrast to the CSÁ, SORNA is not a comprehensive economic regulation of an interstate market. Waybright, 561 F.Supp.2d at 1166-67. To be clear, SOR-NA is comprehensive. It includes provisions governing the national registry requirements for individuals, the duration of the registration requirements, the requirement of registration for sex offenders entering the country, and consequences of states failing to comply with the statute. 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913-16915, 1625-1628. However, the stated purpose of SORNA is to establish a national sex offender registry to “proteet[] the public from sex offenders and offenders against children.” 42 U.S.C. § 16901. This is not economic. See Raich, 545 U.S. at 25-26, 125 S.Ct. 2195 (defining “economics” as the “production, distribution, and consumption of commodities”) (citation omitted). In W