Columbus, OH — On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed its petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in Ream v. U.S. Department of Treasury—one of Buckeye’s cases challenging the federal ban on home distilling.

“The Sixth Circuit’s erroneous decision in Ream sweeps away limitations on Congress’s ability to regulate or prohibit activities—from home cooking to child-care—under the guise of taxing them,” said Andrew M. Grossman, senior legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute, partner in BakerHostetler’s Washington, D.C. office, and counsel of record for the case. “But with home distilling, the government bans people from performing a taxable activity in the name of collecting taxes. George Orwell might be proud of the irony here.”

In its petition, The Buckeye Institute argues that two federal courts—the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Ream and the Fifth Circuit (in Buckeye’s other home distilling case, McNutt v. U.S. Department of Justice)—considered the exact same provisions within 11 days of each other and issued opposite opinions, setting up a compelling circuit split that only the U.S. Supreme Court can resolve.

The Buckeye Institute further argues in its petition that the Supreme Court should overturn the erroneous and expansive Commerce Clause decision in Gonzales v. Raich.

“Mr. Ream’s case offers the Supreme Court a perfect vehicle to address the proper, limited scope of federal power, and does so by challenging a statute that absurdly bans local, noncommercial activity—that is, basement and garage hobbies—under the guise of regulating interstate commerce,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute and a lead attorney on the case. “As we just celebrated our great nation’s 250th anniversary, it is worth noting that the Founders would not have countenanced this would-even-make-King-George-III-blush expansion of federal authority.”

Before they were married, John Ream’s wife, Kristin, gifted him with a home brewing kit. Now, Mr. Ream, a former aerospace engineer at Boeing, seeks to distill small quantities of alcohol in his own home for his own personal consumption. However, the federal government threatens Mr. Ream with years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines if he were to experiment with this George-Washington-approved activity, which is as American as apple pie and certainly predates even that beloved baked good.

Read more about The Buckeye Institute’s case and stay up-to-date on its progress at: BuckeyeInstitute.org/ReamvUSTreasury.

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