Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 710.0

529US3

Unit: $U54

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

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

635

Souter, J., dissenting

(“The Constitution gives to Congress the role of weighing
conﬂicting evidence in the legislative process”).

Indeed, the legislative record here is far more voluminous
than the record compiled by Congress and found sufﬁcient in
two prior cases upholding Title II of the Civil Rights Act
In Heart of
of 1964 against Commerce Clause challenges.
Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241 (1964),
and Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964), the Court
referred to evidence showing the consequences of racial dis-
crimination by motels and restaurants on interstate com-
merce. Congress had relied on compelling anecdotal re-
ports that individual instances of segregation cost thousands
to millions of dollars. See Civil Rights—Public Accommo-
dations, Hearings on S. 1732 before the Senate Committee
on Commerce, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., App. V, pp. 1383–1387
(1963). Congress also had evidence that the average black
family spent substantially less than the average white family
in the same income range on public accommodations, and
that discrimination accounted for much of the difference.
H. R. Rep. No. 88–914, pt. 2, pp. 9–10, and Table II (1963)
(Additional Views on H. R. 7152 of Hon. William M. Mc-
Culloch, Hon. John V. Lindsay, Hon. William T. Cahill, Hon.
Garner E. Shriver, Hon. Clark MacGregor, Hon. Charles
McC. Mathias, Hon. James E. Bromwell).

While Congress did not, to my knowledge, calculate ag-
gregate dollar values for the nationwide effects of racial
discrimination in 1964, in 1994 it did rely on evidence of the
harms caused by domestic violence and sexual assault, citing
annual costs of $3 billion in 1990, see S. Rep. 101–545, at 33,
and $5 to $10 billion in 1993, see S. Rep. No. 103–138, at 41.9
Equally important, though, gender-based violence in the
1990’s was shown to operate in a manner similar to racial

9 In other cases, we have accepted dramatically smaller ﬁgures. See,
e. g., Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U. S. 314, 325, n. 11 (1981) (stating that corn
production with a value of $5.16 million “surely is not an insigniﬁcant
amount of commerce”).