Because our Constitutional law is so messed up in this country and twisted to fit the will of the times, this isn’t even a commerce clause case; it’s a dormant commerce clause case! What’s that you ask? We look at the commerce clause and what it says, but then we also get to interpret what we think it doesn’t say. Or, put differently, we infer from the fact that the commerce clause doesn’t say more. When judges interpret a requirement out of silence, we all lose (just my personal opinion and two cents).
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Fair. Just to be clear though if you don’t think the Dormant Commerce Clause “exists” that would mean the Court would have had no jurisdiction to review the North Dakota law in Quill. There would have been no physical presence requirement unless and until Congress specifically acted. States would have been free to impose SUT obligations generally without limits.
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Sounds right. But I’m also a pretty strict textualist in the vein of Thomas. If my view of the constitution were accepted it would lead to a lot of crazy changes in society as we know it (like erasing 80-90% of the federal gov’t).
To be clear, I’m not saying I want that outcome. I’m simply saying that if the Constitution were interpreted as I think it should be, there’d be lots of changes that I might not like. Of course, that’s what judges are supposed to do–faithfully interpret the laws and Constitution without concern for unintended, bad consequences. Unfortunately, our federal judiciary seems to be more concerned with legislating for the last 50-60 years.
However, I will give the judiciary a break. Congress and other legislatures, in an effort to appeal to voters, have passed sweeping legislation with great talking points, and then this mess is thrown on the steps of SCOTUS to figure it out.
In short, and this should come as no surprise, our gov’t is a wreck 
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Found this breakdown :
All the judges agree at least 50% of the time. I’m sure there are many unanimous decisions. And nobody agrees more than 96% of the time.
I don’t think the press is really trying to make us believe anything about the court. The press just reports major cases of note and those quite often split along political lines. The general public doesn’t care about the unanimous decisions or the obsure law stuff. The public does care about major court issues that are also often more divisive politically.
eta:
also found this :
"The most recent term, in fact, was the least partisan since the middle of the 20th century. Over half of the cases were unanimous, and only 14 percent were decided by a 5–3 or 5–4 split. "
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Not a huge surprise but I heard there’s an out for very small business, not sure about the detail. It would suck for some tiny online store to have to write 40+ checks to the states. I’m in a state of no income tax so they are making it up everywhere else.