Can Congress prevent the 49ers from using "San Francisco" if they move?
According to news reports, if the owners of the San Francisco 49ers go through with their plan to move the team to Santa Clara, Senator Feinstein (perhaps abetted by Speaker Pelosi) will introduce legislation preventing them from using "San Francisco" as part of their name. Can Congress do that? The short answer is yes, as San Francisco itself found out when it was on the losing end of a case involving Congressional conferral of exclusive rights to use the word "Olympics." In that case (which you can find here), a San Francisco organization was prevented from calling its sports festival the "Gay Olympics" by a federal statute. The Court said that Congress was within its power to confer exclusive use of "Olympics" on the United States Olympic Committee, because "Congress reasonably could conclude that the commercial and promotional value of the word "Olympic" was the product of the USOC's 'own talents and energy, the end result of much time, effort, and expense.'"
So, can the same be said of the value of the word "San Francisco?" Probably. While the value of a city name is not wholly or even mostly the product of official efforts, they do generally come from the efforts of people who live and/or work in the city. That's probably enough to satisfy any claim that Congress lacks power to enact such legislation.
Of course, it's another question whether Congress should do such a thing. My bet is that most 49ers fans would prefer that the word "San Francisco" remain in the team name, so long as they play in the Bay Area, broadly defined. If so, the point of the legislation would be to deter a move, not to prevent the name use after a move is a fait accompli. But there's nothing constitutionally wrong with deterrent legislation.
So, can the same be said of the value of the word "San Francisco?" Probably. While the value of a city name is not wholly or even mostly the product of official efforts, they do generally come from the efforts of people who live and/or work in the city. That's probably enough to satisfy any claim that Congress lacks power to enact such legislation.
Of course, it's another question whether Congress should do such a thing. My bet is that most 49ers fans would prefer that the word "San Francisco" remain in the team name, so long as they play in the Bay Area, broadly defined. If so, the point of the legislation would be to deter a move, not to prevent the name use after a move is a fait accompli. But there's nothing constitutionally wrong with deterrent legislation.
posted by Michael C. Dorf @ 9:06 AM
3 Comments:
At 1:09 PM,
Adam P. said…
This seems asinine, particularly in that Feinstein says she's going to introduce legislation to this effect. While the broad economic interstate commerce clause theory is out there, this doesnt sit well with me as an appropriate congressional issue.
If the City of SF were to take it up, perhaps. A key distinction with the Olympics is that the USOC is a Congressionally Chartered agency, initially serving an international relations context. The use of "San Francisco" is a common law property right, I'd assume.
At 1:17 PM,
David C. said…
I'm going to have to disagree with Adam. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed immediately.
I'll be honest, I was worried that the Dems might not be serious about healing the country and undoing the damage, but thankfully they have their priorities in order. If Sen. Clinton is wants to make a run for President, maybe she needs to start looking into this Watergate-scale scandal of the "New York" Jets and Giants playing in East Rutherford, N.J. Football consumers have been fooled for too long! I haven't felt this much outrage since I found out Rhode Island wasn't actually an island. No wonder Chaffee was voted out of office.
What do you have to say about that, Adam? Why do you hate voters so much?
At 8:47 PM,
Jamison Colburn said…
It seems like a different--and interestingly different--question when the word being protected is the name of a municipality incorporated by the state. Presumably, if the state wished to protect the city name from the sort of dilution proposed by the ball club here, it could do so by legislation. (What's in a name? Only the most profound questions of analytical philosophy according to Kripke.) That the federal government would have authority (as Mike said, whether Pelosi & Feinstein should do so politically is another matter) here is dubious in my mind, at least if you take the Tenth Amendment as seriously as the Court has in recent memory.
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