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Page Number: 737.0

529US3

Unit: $U54

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UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Breyer, J., dissenting

the System, Hearing on S. 15 before the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 1st Sess., 37–38 (1991) (unani-
mous resolution of the National Association of Attorneys
General); but cf. Crimes of Violence Motivated by Gender,
supra, at 77–84 (Conference of Chief Justices opposing
legislation).

Moreover, as Justice Souter has pointed out, Congress
compiled a “mountain of data” explicitly documenting the
interstate commercial effects of gender-motivated crimes of
violence. Ante, at 628–635, 653–654 (dissenting opinion).
After considering alternatives, it focused the federal law
upon documented deﬁciencies in state legal systems. And it
tailored the law to prevent its use in certain areas of tradi-
tional state concern, such as divorce, alimony, or child cus-
tody.
42 U. S. C. § 13981(e)(4). Consequently, the law be-
fore us seems to represent an instance, not of state/federal
conﬂict, but of state/federal efforts to cooperate in order
to help solve a mutually acknowledged national problem.
Cf. §§ 300w–10, 3796gg, 3796hh, 10409, 13931 (providing fed-
eral moneys to encourage state and local initiatives to com-
bat gender-motivated violence).

I call attention to the legislative process leading up to
enactment of this statute because, as the majority recog-
nizes, ante, at 614, it far surpasses that which led to the
enactment of the statute we considered in Lopez. And even
were I to accept Lopez as an accurate statement of the law,
which I do not, that distinction provides a possible basis for
upholding the law here. This Court on occasion has pointed
to the importance of procedural limitations in keeping the
power of Congress in check. See Garcia, supra, at 554
(“Any substantive restraint on the exercise of Commerce
Clause powers must ﬁnd its justiﬁcation in the procedural
nature of this basic limitation, and it must be tailored to com-
pensate for possible failings in the national political process
rather than to dictate a ‘sacred province of state autonomy’ ”
(quoting EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U. S. 226, 236 (1983))); see