Legal Question in Constitutional Law in West Virginia

Re: Seat Belt Laws

The states have a general police power under which they can enact laws to promote safety. This is one of the powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment to the states under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Seatbelt laws are one way in which states have exercised this power.

States are not required to have seatbelt laws, but the choice is theirs and I believe all of them have enacted such laws. There are legitimate arguments against seatbelt laws, but these areguments have been considered by the various state legislatures and have evidently been rejected.

Re: Seat Belt Laws

State governments have the power to enact legislation requiring seat-belt use pursuant to their general police powers reserved unto the States by the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Generally speaking, states have the power to enact legislation for the purpose of promoting the safety and welfare of their citizens unless:

(1) The legislation concerns a subject preempted by Federal power; or

(2) The legislation violates a constitutional (state or federal) provision limiting the power of government to regulate behavior of its citizens.

I think it would be very difficult to make a convincing CONSTITUTIONAL argument that a state violates either its own or the federal constitution by enacting a seat-belt law. I am aware of no precedent interpreting any existing constitutional provision or amendment as proscribing the states' power to require people who use public highways to comply with traffic safety regulations or even arguably creating an individual right to use public highways without complying with such regulations.

As for the Federal government, there is not actually a federal law mandating seat-belt use. What Congress has done is utilize its SPENDING POWER (Art. 1, �8, 1) to encourage (or coerce if you prefer) the states to enact seat-belt laws by enacting legislation mandating that states without a seat-belt law receive less federal money for highways. The states are free to decline to enact a seat-belt law but they lose federal money if they do so.

Congress has not done so but arguably it could enact a federal seat-belt law under the COMMERCE CLAUSE (Art. 1, � 8, 3)or the Necessary And Proper Clause (Art. 1 � 8, 18). That would be more controversial than the question of whether the states have the power to enact such legislation.