Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 674.0

529US3

Unit: $U54

[10-04-01 09:35:39] PAGES PGT: OPIN

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

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Syllabus

to come within Congress’ authority, Congress elected to cast § 13981’s
remedy over a wider, and more purely intrastate, body of violent crime.
Third, although § 13981, unlike the Lopez statute, is supported by
numerous ﬁndings regarding the serious impact of gender-motivated
violence on victims and their families, these ﬁndings are substan-
tially weakened by the fact that they rely on reasoning that this Court
has rejected, namely, a but-for causal chain from the initial occurrence
of violent crime to every attenuated effect upon interstate commerce.
If accepted, this reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime
whose nationwide, aggregated impact has substantial effects on em-
ployment, production, transit, or consumption. Moreover, such rea-
soning will not limit Congress to regulating violence, but may be applied
equally as well to family law and other areas of state regulation since
the aggregate effect of marriage, divorce, and childrearing on the na-
tional economy is undoubtedly signiﬁcant. The Constitution requires
a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, and
there is no better example of the police power, which the Found-
ers undeniably left reposed in the States and denied the central Gov-
ernment, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its
victims. Congress therefore may not regulate noneconomic, violent
criminal conduct based solely on the conduct’s aggregate effect on inter-
state commerce. Pp. 607–619.

(b) Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which permits Con-
gress to enforce by appropriate legislation the constitutional guarantee
that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property with-
out due process, or deny any person equal protection of the laws, City
of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 517, also does not give Congress the
authority to enact § 13981. Petitioners’ assertion that there is perva-
sive bias in various state justice systems against victims of gender-
motivated violence is supported by a voluminous congressional record.
However, the Fourteenth Amendment places limitations on the man-
ner in which Congress may attack discriminatory conduct. Foremost
among them is the principle that the Amendment prohibits only state
action, not private conduct. This was the conclusion reached in United
States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, and the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3,
which were both decided shortly after the Amendment’s adoption.
The force of the doctrine of stare decisis behind these decisions stems
not only from the length of time they have been on the books, but also
from the insight attributable to the Members of the Court at that time,
who all had intimate knowledge and familiarity with the events sur-
rounding the Amendment’s adoption. Neither United States v. Guest,
383 U. S. 745, nor District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U. S. 418, casts
any doubt on the enduring vitality of the Civil Rights Cases and Harris.