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UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Breyer, J., dissenting

or even most States.” Ante, at 626. But Congress had be-
fore it the task force reports of at least 21 States docu-
menting constitutional violations. And it made its own
ﬁndings about pervasive gender-based stereotypes ham-
pering many state legal systems, sometimes unconstitution-
ally so. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 103–138, pp. 38, 41–42, 44–47
(1993); S. Rep. No. 102–197, pp. 39, 44–49 (1991); H. R. Conf.
Rep. No. 103–711, p. 385 (1994). The record nowhere reveals
a congressional ﬁnding that the problem “does not exist”
elsewhere. Why can Congress not take the evidence before
it as evidence of a national problem? This Court has not
previously held that Congress must document the existence
of a problem in every State prior to proposing a national
solution. And the deference this Court gives to Congress’
chosen remedy under § 5, Flores, supra, at 536, suggests that
any such requirement would be inappropriate.

Despite my doubts about the majority’s § 5 reasoning,
I need not, and do not, answer the § 5 question, which I
would leave for more thorough analysis if necessary on an-
other occasion. Rather, in my view, the Commerce Clause
provides an adequate basis for the statute before us. And
I would uphold its constitutionality as the “necessary and
proper” exercise of legislative power granted to Congress by
that Clause.