Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 739

529US3

Unit: $U54

[10-04-01 09:35:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

664

UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Breyer, J., dissenting

of Congress’ own procedural approach—in which case the
law may evolve toward a rule that, in certain difﬁcult Com-
merce Clause cases, takes account of the thoroughness with
which Congress has considered the federalism issue.

For these reasons, as well as those set forth by Justice
Souter, this statute falls well within Congress’ Commerce
Clause authority, and I dissent from the Court’s contrary
conclusion.

II

Given my conclusion on the Commerce Clause question,
I need not consider Congress’ authority under § 5 of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Nonetheless, I doubt the Court’s
reasoning rejecting that source of authority. The Court
points out that in United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629
(1883), and the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), the
Court held that § 5 does not authorize Congress to use
the Fourteenth Amendment as a source of power to remedy
the conduct of private persons. Ante, at 621–622. That is
certainly so. The Federal Government’s argument, how-
ever, is that Congress used § 5 to remedy the actions of state
actors, namely, those States which, through discriminatory
design or the discriminatory conduct of their ofﬁcials, failed
to provide adequate (or any) state remedies for women
injured by gender-motivated violence—a failure that the
States, and Congress, documented in depth. See ante, at
630–631, n. 7, 653–654 (Souter, J., dissenting) (collecting
sources).

Neither Harris nor the Civil Rights Cases considered this
kind of claim. The Court in Harris speciﬁcally said that it
treated the federal laws in question as “directed exclusively
against the action of private persons, without reference to
the laws of the State or their administration by her ofﬁcers.”
106 U. S., at 640 (emphasis added); see also Civil Rights
Cases, supra, at 14 (observing that the statute did “not pro-
fess to be corrective of any constitutional wrong committed
by the States” and that it established “rules for the conduct