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

637

Souter, J., dissenting

II

The Act would have passed muster at any time between
Wickard in 1942 and Lopez in 1995, a period in which the
law enjoyed a stable understanding that congressional power
under the Commerce Clause, complemented by the authority
of the Necessary and Proper Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, ex-
tended to all activity that, when aggregated, has a substan-
tial effect on interstate commerce. As already noted, this
understanding was secure even against the turmoil at the
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in the aftermath of
which the Court not only reafﬁrmed the cumulative effects
and rational basis features of the substantial effects test,
see Heart of Atlanta, supra, at 258; McClung, supra, at
301–305, but declined to limit the commerce power through
a formal distinction between legislation focused on “com-
merce” and statutes addressing “moral and social wrong[s],”
Heart of Atlanta, supra, at 257.

The fact that the Act does not pass muster before the
Court today is therefore proof, to a degree that Lopez was
not, that the Court’s nominal adherence to the substantial
effects test is merely that. Although a new jurisprudence
has not emerged with any distinctness, it is clear that some
congressional conclusions about obviously substantial, cumu-
lative effects on commerce are being assigned lesser values
than the once-stable doctrine would assign them. These de-
valuations are accomplished not by any express repudiation
of the substantial effects test or its application through
the aggregation of individual conduct, but by supplanting
rational basis scrutiny with a new criterion of review.

Kennedy and Souter). The Judicial Conference of the United States
originally opposed the Act, though after the original bill was amended
to include the gender-based animus requirement, the objection was with-
drawn for reasons that are not apparent. See Crimes of Violence Moti-
vated by Gender, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Civil and Con-
stitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 103d Cong.,
1st Sess., 70–71 (1993).