A 100-year-old law that artificially inflates the price of shipping freight by water in the United States is widely understood to be an economically inefficient bit of protectionism.
Could it also be unconstitutional?
That's what a lawsuit filed Tuesday asks a federal district court to decide. In the complaint, the owners of a Hawaii-based rum company say the Jones Act has unfairly disadvantaged them relative to businesses that operate in other parts of the country—something that could violate an arcane clause in the U.S. Constitution that forbids federal policymakers from favoring one port over another.
