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It's an overreach. "A pound is 16 ounces" is not the same as "cakes shall only be 5 ounces," i.e., a standard of measure does not extend to regulation of what is measured and what measures are permitted. An originalist court could fix this.


That analogy does not hold up. A fuel dispenser is a metering device. The scale at your grocery store that measures the weight of the cake is, likewise, an NTEP scale: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/national-type-evaluat...

These are very fundamental consumer protection regulations that have been solidly cemented in western civilization for many centuries now.

>not extend to regulation of [...] what measures are permitted.

That was exactly the point of that clause. The colonies all had their own system of measurement and it was a mess trying to do business. Now, congress did very little about it, but the founders intentionally reserved the right for them to fix that problem.


The problem with your formulation is that there is no limiting principle. Perversely, the government could rule that a pregnant person is a metering device for gestation and establish standards.


No, a pregnancy does not meter any commercial exchange of goods.




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