Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 728

529US3

Unit: $U54

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)

653

Souter, J., dissenting

eral system, “which only collective action by the National
Government might forestall.” Usery, 426 U. S., at 853.
Today’s majority, however, ﬁnds no signiﬁcance whatever
in the state support for the Act based upon the States’
acknowledged failure to deal adequately with gender-based
violence in state courts, and the belief of their own law en-
forcement agencies that national action is essential.20

The National Association of Attorneys General supported
the Act unanimously, see Violence Against Women: Victims
of the System, Hearing on S. 15 before the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 1st Sess., 37–38 (1991), and
Attorneys General from 38 States urged Congress to enact
the Civil Rights Remedy, representing that “the current sys-
tem for dealing with violence against women is inadequate,”
see Crimes of Violence Motivated by Gender, Hearing before
the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the
House Committee on the Judiciary, 103d Cong., 1st Sess.,
34–36 (1993).
It was against this record of failure at the
state level that the Act was passed to provide the choice
of a federal forum in place of the state-court systems found
inadequate to stop gender-biased violence. See Women
and Violence, Hearing before the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1990)
(statement of
Sen. Biden) (noting importance of federal forum).21 The Act
accordingly offers a federal civil rights remedy aimed exactly

20 See n. 7, supra. The point here is not that I take the position that
the States are incapable of dealing adequately with domestic violence if
their political leaders have the will to do so; it is simply that the Congress
had evidence from which it could ﬁnd a national statute necessary, so that
its passage obviously survives Commerce Clause scrutiny.

21 The majority’s concerns about accountability strike me as entirely
misplaced.
Individuals, such as the defendants in this action, haled into
federal court and sued under the United States Code, are quite aware of
which of our dual sovereignties is attempting to regulate their behavior.
Had Congress chosen, in the exercise of its powers under § 5 of the Four-
teenth Amendment, to proceed instead by regulating the States, rather
than private individuals, this accountability would be far less plain.