Legal Commentary

Making the electronic rounds over the weekend was a proposed rules change by the incoming Republican leadership in the House, to require any new bill to include a statement identifying the particular source of constitutional authority for the substance of the legislation. In particular, the new language to Clause 7 of Rule XII would specify that:

A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor has submitted for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution. The statement shall appear in a portion of the Record designated for that purpose and be made publicly available in electronic form by the Clerk.?

I haven't thought that hard about this rules change, but it strikes me as a fairly silly political trick that will be utterly devoid of legal significance.  It's not just that Congress has never had to specifically identify the source of its power for legislation in the past; it's that, if memory serves, the courts have often upheld legislation based on powers other than the one (or two) most obvious / likely candidates, whether or not Congress identified that provision as a source of its power. Nevermind the separate but equally distinct possibility that a bill will be amended between introduction and passage to regulate based on different enumerated powers than those initially identified by the bill's sponsor...

Do folks disagree? That is, does anyone think that a court would strike down a federal law that is a valid exercise of Congress's constitutional authority on the ground that it's not a valid exercise of the power Congress thought (or "said") it was exercising? If not, is this federalism-inspired theater? Something more sinister?