Constitution of the United States/Fourteenth Amend./Section 5 Enforcement

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Constitutional Law Treatise
Table of Contents
US Constitution.jpg
Constitutional Law Outline
Introduction
The Preamble
Article I Legislative Branch
Art. I, Section 1 Legislative Vesting Clause
Art. I, Section 2 House of Representatives
Art. I, Section 3 Senate
Art. I, Section 4 Congress
Art. I, Section 5 Proceedings
Art. I, Section 6 Rights and Disabilities
Art. I, Section 7 Legislation
Art. I, Section 8 Enumerated Powers
Art. I, Section 9 Powers Denied Congress
Art. I, Section 10 Powers Denied States
Article II Executive Branch
Art. II, Section 1 Function and Selection
Art. II, Section 2 Powers
Art. II, Section 3 Duties
Art. II, Section 4 Impeachment
Article III Judicial Branch
Art. III, Section 1 Vesting Clause
Art. III, Section 2 Justiciability
Art. III, Section 3 Treason
Article IV Relationships Between the States
Art. IV, Section 1 Full Faith and Credit Clause
Art. IV, Section 2 Interstate Comity
Art. IV, Section 3 New States and Federal Property
Art. IV, Section 4 Republican Form of Government
Article V Amending the Constitution
Article VI Supreme Law
Article VII Ratification
First Amendment: Fundamental Freedoms
Religion
Establishment Clause
Free Exercise Clause
Free Speech Clause
Freedom of Association
Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
Third Amendment: Quartering Soldiers
Fourth Amendment: Searches and Seizures
Fifth Amendment: Rights of Persons
Sixth Amendment: Rights in Criminal Prosecutions
Seventh Amendment: Civil Trial Rights
Eighth Amendment: Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Ninth Amendment: Unenumerated Rights
Tenth Amendment: Rights Reserved to the States and the People
Eleventh Amendment: Suits Against States
Twelfth Amendment: Election of President
Thirteenth Amendment: Abolition of Slavery
Thirteenth Amend., Section 1 Prohibition on Slavery and Involuntary Servitude
Thirteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection and Other Rights
Fourteenth Amend., Section 1 Rights
Fourteenth Amend., Section 2 Apportionment of Representation
Fourteenth Amend., Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
Fourteenth Amend., Section 4 Public Debt
Fourteenth Amend., Section 5 Enforcement
Fifteenth Amendment: Right of Citizens to Vote
Fifteenth Amend., Section 1 Right to Vote
Fifteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
Sixteenth Amendment: Income Tax
Seventeenth Amendment: Popular Election of Senators
Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition of Liquor
Eighteenth Amend., Section 1 Prohibition
Eighteenth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement of Prohibition
Eighteenth Amend., Section 3 Ratification Deadline
Nineteenth Amendment: Women's Suffrage
Twentieth Amendment: Presidential Term and Succession
Twentieth Amend., Section 1 Terms
Twentieth Amend., Section 2 Meetings of Congress
Twentieth Amend., Section 3 Succession
Twentieth Amend., Section 4 Congress and Presidential Succession
Twentieth Amend., Section 5 Effective Date
Twentieth Amend., Section 6 Ratification
Twenty-First Amendment: Repeal of Prohibition
Twenty-First Amend., Section 1 Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment
Twenty-First Amend., Section 2 Importation, Transportation, and Sale of Liquor
Twenty-First Amend., Section 3 Ratification Deadline
Twenty-Second Amendment: Presidential Term Limits
Twenty-Second Amend., Section 1 Limit
Twenty-Second Amend., Section 2 Ratification Deadline
Twenty-Third Amendment: District of Columbia Electors
Twenty-Third Amend., Section 1 Electors
Twenty-Third Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
Twenty-Fourth Amendment: Abolition of Poll Tax
Twenty-Fourth Amend., Section 1 Poll Tax
Twenty-Fourth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Presidential Vacancy
Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 1 Presidential Vacancy
Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 2 Vice President Vacancy
Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 3 Declaration by President
Twenty-Fifth Amend., Section 4 Declaration by Vice President and Others
Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Reduction of Voting Age
Twenty-Sixth Amend., Section 1 Eighteen Years of Age
Twenty-Sixth Amend., Section 2 Enforcement
Twenty-Seventh Amendment: Congressional Compensation

Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights

Section 5 Enforcement

Clause Text
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Overview of Enforcement Clause[edit | edit source]

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress, in addition to proposing to the states the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, enacted seven statutes designed in a variety of ways to implement the provisions of these Amendments.[1] Several of these laws were general civil rights statutes that broadly attacked racial and other discrimination on the part of private individuals and groups as well as by the states, but the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional or rendered ineffective practically all of these laws over the course of several years.[2] In the end, Reconstruction was abandoned and with rare exceptions no cases were brought under the remaining statutes until fairly recently.[3] Beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1957, however, Congress generally acted pursuant to its powers under the Commerce Clause[4] until Supreme Court decisions indicated an expansive concept of congressional power under the Civil War Amendments,[5] which culminated in broad provisions against private interference with civil rights in the 1968 legislation.[6]

Who Congress May Regulate[edit | edit source]

In enforcing by appropriate legislation the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees against state denials, Congress has the discretion to adopt remedial measures, such as authorizing persons being denied their civil rights in state courts to remove their cases to federal courts,[7] and to provide criminal[8] and civil[9] liability for state officials and agents[10] or persons associated with them[11] who violate protected rights. These statutory measures designed to eliminate discrimination "under color of law"[12] present no problems of constitutional foundation, although there may well be other problems of application.[13] But the Reconstruction Congresses did not stop with statutory implementation of rights guaranteed against state infringement, moving as well against private interference.

Thus, in the Civil Rights Act of 1875[14] Congress had proscribed private racial discrimination in the admission to and use of inns, public conveyances, theaters, and other places of public amusement. The Civil Rights Cases[15] found this enactment to be beyond Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court observed that Section 1 prohibited only state action and did not reach private conduct. Therefore, Congress's power under Section 5 to enforce Section 1 by appropriate legislation was held to be similarly limited. "It does not invest Congress with power to legislate upon subjects which are within the domain of State legislation; but to provide modes of relief against State legislation, or State action, of the kind referred to. It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights; but to provide modes of redress against the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers executive or judicial, when these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the amendment."[16] The holding in this case had already been preceded by United States v. Cruikshank[17] and by United States v. Harris[18] in which the Federal Government had prosecuted individuals for killing and injuring African Americans. The Amendment did not increase the power of the Federal Government vis-a-vis individuals, the Court held, only with regard to the states themselves.[19]

Cruikshank did, however, recognize a small category of federal rights that Congress could protect against private deprivation, rights that the Court viewed as deriving particularly from one's status as a citizen of the United States and that Congress had a general police power to protect.[20] These rights included the right to vote in federal elections, general and primary,[21] the right to federal protection while in the custody of federal officers,[22] and the right to inform federal officials of violations of federal law.[23] The right of interstate travel is a basic right derived from the Federal Constitution, which Congress may protect.[24] In United States v. Williams,[25] in the context of state action, the Court divided 4-4 over whether the predecessor of [1] 18 U.S.C. § 241 in its reference to a "right or privilege secured . . . by the Constitution or laws of the United States" encompassed rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, or was restricted to those rights "which Congress can beyond doubt constitutionally secure against interference by private individuals." This issue was again reached in United States v. Price[26] and United States v. Guest,[27] again in the context of state action, in which the Court concluded that the statute included within its scope rights guaranteed by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.

Because the Court found that both Price and Guest concerned sufficient state action, it did not then have to reach the question of Section 241's constitutionality when applied to private action that interfered with rights not the subject of a general police power. But Justice William Brennan, responding to what he apparently intepreted as language in the Court's opinion construing Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to be limited by the state action requirement, appended a lengthy statement, which a majority of the Justices joined, arguing that Congress's power was broader.[28] "Although the Fourteenth Amendment itself . . . 'speaks to the State or to those acting under the color of its authority,' legislation protecting rights created by that Amendment, such as the right to equal utilization of state facilities, need not be confined to punishing conspiracies in which state officers participate. Rather, Section 5 authorizes Congress to make laws that it concludes are reasonably necessary to protect a right created by and arising under that Amendment; and Congress is thus fully empowered to determine that punishment of private conspiracies interfering with the exercise of such a right is necessary to its full protection."[29] The Justice throughout the opinion refers to "Fourteenth Amendment rights," by which he meant rights that, in the words of [2] 18 U.S.C. § 241, are "secured . . . by the Constitution," that is, by the Fourteenth Amendment through prohibitory words addressed only to governmental officers. Thus, the Equal Protection Clause commands that all "public facilities owned or operated by or on behalf of the State," be available equally to all persons; that access is a right granted by the Constitution, and Section 5 is viewed "as a positive grant of legislative power, authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in fashioning remedies to achieve civil and political equality for all citizens." Within this discretion is the "power to determine that in order adequately to protect the right to equal utilization of state facilities, it is also appropriate to punish other individuals" who would deny such access.[30]

The Court, however, ultimately rejected this expansion of the powers of Congress in United States v. Morrison.[31] In Morrison, the Court invalidated a provision of the Violence Against Women Act[32] that established a federal civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence. The case involved a university student who brought a civil action against other students who allegedly raped her. The argument was made that there was a pervasive bias against victims of gender-motivated violence in state justice systems, and that the federal remedy would offset and deter this bias. The Court first reaffirmed the state action requirement for legislation passed under the Fourteenth Amendment,[33] dismissing the dicta in Guest, and reaffirming the precedents of the Civil Rights Cases and United States v. Harris. The Court also rejected the assertion that the legislation was "corrective" of bias in the courts, as the suits are not directed at the state or any state actor, but rather at the individuals committing the criminal acts.[34]

Pre-Modern Doctrine on Enforcement Clause[edit | edit source]

In the Civil Rights Cases,[35] the Court observed that "the legislation which Congress is authorized to adopt in this behalf is not general legislation upon the rights of the citizen, but corrective legislation," that is, laws to counteract and overrule those state laws that Section 1 forbids the states to adopt. The Court was quite clear that, under its responsibilities of judicial review, it was the body that would determine that a state law was impermissible and that a federal law passed pursuant to Section 5 was necessary and proper to enforce Section 1.[36] But, in United States v. Guest,[37] Justice William Brennan protested that this view "attributes a far too limited objective to the Amendment's sponsors," that in fact "the primary purpose of the Amendment was to augment the power of Congress, not the judiciary."

In Katzenbach v. Morgan,[38] Justice William Brennan, this time speaking for the Court, in effect overrode the limiting view and posited a doctrine by which Congress was to define the substance of what the legislation enacted pursuant to Section 5 must be appropriate to. That is, in upholding the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965[39] barring the application of English literacy requirements to a certain class of voters, the Court rejected a state argument "that an exercise of congressional power under § 5 . . . that prohibits the enforcement of a state law can only be sustained if the judicial branch determines that the state law is prohibited by the provisions of the Amendment that Congress sought to enforce."[40] Because the Court had previously upheld an English literacy requirement under equal protection challenge,[41] acceptance of the argument would have doomed the federal law. But, said Justice William Brennan, Congress itself might have questioned the justifications put forward by the state in defense of its law and might have concluded that, instead of being supported by acceptable reasons, the requirements were unrelated to those justifications and discriminatory in intent and effect. The Court would not evaluate the competing considerations that might have led Congress to its conclusion; because Congress "brought a specially informed legislative competence" to an appraisal of voting requirements, "it was Congress's prerogative to weigh" the considerations and the Court would sustain the conclusion if "we perceive a basis upon which Congress might predicate a judgment" that the requirements constituted invidious discrimination.[42]

In dissent, Justice John Harlan protested that "[i]n effect the Court reads § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment as giving Congress the power to define the substantive scope of the Amendment. If that indeed be the true reach of § 5, then I do not see why Congress should not be able as well to exercise its § 5 'discretion' by enacting statutes so as in effect to dilute equal protection and due process decisions of this Court."[43] Justice William Brennan rejected this reasoning: "We emphasize that Congress's power under § 5 is limited to adopting measures to enforce the guarantees of the Amendment; § 5 grants Congress no power to restrict, abrogate, or dilute these guarantees."[44] Congress responded, however, in both fashions. On the one hand, in the 1968 Civil Rights Act it relied on Morgan in expanding federal powers to deal with private violence that is racially motivated, and to some degree in outlawing most private housing discrimination;[45] on the other hand, it enacted provisions of law purporting to overrule the Court's expansion of the self-incrimination and right-to-counsel clauses of the Bill of Rights, expressly invoking Morgan.[46]

Congress's power under Morgan returned to the Court's consideration when several states challenged congressional legislation[47] lowering the voting age in all elections to eighteen and prescribing residency and absentee voting requirements for the conduct of presidential elections. In upholding the latter provision and in dividing over the former, the Court revealed that Morgan's vitality was in some considerable doubt, at least with regard to the reach that many observers had previously seen.[48] Four Justices accepted Morgan in full,[49] while one Justice rejected it totally[50] and another would have limited it to racial cases.[51] The other three Justices seemingly restricted Morgan to its alternate rationale in passing on the age reduction provision, but the manner in which they dealt with the residency and absentee voting provision afforded Congress some degree of discretion in making substantive decisions about what state action is discriminatory above and beyond the judicial view of the matter.[52]

More recent decisions read broadly Congress's power to make determinations that appear to be substantive decisions with respect to constitutional violations.[53] Acting under both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, Congress has acted to reach state electoral practices that "result" in diluting the voting power of minorities, although the Court apparently requires that it be shown that electoral procedures must have been created or maintained with a discriminatory animus before they may be invalidated under the two Amendments.[54] Moreover, movements have been initiated in Congress by opponents of certain of the Court's decisions, notably the abortion rulings, to use Section 5 powers to curtail the rights the Court has derived from the Due Process Clause and other provisions of the Constitution.[55]

Modern Doctrine on Enforcement Clause[edit | edit source]

City of Boerne v. Flores[56] illustrates that the Court will not always defer to Congress's determination as to what legislation is appropriate to "enforce" the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Flores, the Court held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,[57] which expressly overturned the Court's narrowing of religious protections under Employment Division v. Smith,[58] exceeded congressional power under Section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the Court allowed that Congress's power to legislate to deter or remedy constitutional violations may include prohibitions on conduct that is not itself unconstitutional, the Court also held that there must be "a congruence and proportionality" between the means adopted and the injury to be remedied.[59] Unlike the pervasive suppression of the African American vote in the South that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, there was no similar history of religious persecution constituting an "egregious predicate" for the far-reaching provision of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Also, unlike the Voting Rights Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act contained no geographic restrictions or termination dates.[60]

A reinvigorated Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence has led to a spate of decisions applying the principles the Court set forth in Boerne, as litigants precluded from arguing that a state's sovereign immunity has been abrogated under Article I congressional powers[61] seek alternative legislative authority in Section 5. For instance, in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Board v. College Savings Bank,[62] a bank that had patented a financial method designed to guarantee investors sufficient funds to cover the costs of college tuition sued the State of Florida for administering a similar program, arguing that the state's sovereign immunity had been abrogated by Congress in exercise of its Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power. The Court, however, held that application of the federal patent law to the states was not properly tailored to remedy or prevent due process violations. The Court noted that Congress had identified no pattern of patent infringement by the states, nor a systematic denial of state remedy for such violations such as would constitute a deprivation of property without due process.[63]

A similar result was reached regarding the application of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to state agencies in Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents.[64] In determining that the Act did not meet the "congruence and proportionality" test, the Court focused not just on whether state agencies had engaged in age discrimination, but on whether states had engaged in unconstitutional age discrimination. This was a particularly difficult test to meet, as the Court has generally rejected constitutional challenges to age discrimination by states, finding that there is a rational basis for states to use age as a proxy for other qualities, abilities, and characteristics.[65] Noting the lack of a sufficient legislative record establishing broad and unconstitutional state discrimination based on age, the Court found that the ADEA, as applied to the states, was "so out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot be understood as responsive to or designed to prevent unconstitutional behavior."[66]

Despite what was considered by many to be a better developed legislative record, the Court in Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett[67] also rejected the recovery of money damages against states, this time under of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).[68] Title I of the ADA prohibits employers, including states, from "discriminating against a qualified individual with a disability"[69] and requires employers to "make reasonable accommodations [for] . . . physical or mental limitations . . . . unless [to do so]. . . would impose an undue hardship on the . . . business."[70] Although the Court had previously overturned discriminatory legislative classifications based on disability in City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center,[71] the Court had held that determinations of when states had violated the Equal Protection Clause in such cases were to be made under the relatively deferential standard of rational basis review. Thus, failure of an employer to provide the kind of "reasonable accommodations" required under the ADA would not generally rise to the level of a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and instances of such failures did not qualify as a "history and pattern of unconstitutional employment discrimination."[72] Thus, according to the Court, not only did the legislative history developed by the Congress not establish a pattern of unconstitutional discrimination against the disabled by states,[73] but the requirements of the ADA would be out of proportion to the alleged offenses.

The Court's more recent decisions in this area, however, seem to de-emphasize the need for a substantial legislative record when the class being discriminated against is protected by heightened scrutiny of the government's action. In Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs,[74] the Court considered the recovery of monetary damages against states under the Family and Medical Leave Act. This Act provides, among other things, that both male and female employees may take up to twelve weeks of unpaid "family care" leave to care for a close relative with a serious health condition. Noting that Section 5 could be used to justify prophylactic legislation, the Court accepted the argument that the Act was intended to prevent gender-based discrimination in the workplace tracing to the historic stereotype that women are the primary caregivers. Congress had documented historical instances of discrimination against women by state governments, and had found that women were provided maternity leave more often than were men.

Although there was a relative absence of proof that states were still engaged in wholesale gender discrimination in employment, the Court distinguished Garrett and Kimel, which had held Congress to a high standard for justifying legislation attempting to remedy classifications subject only to rational basis review. "Because the standard for demonstrating the constitutionality of a gender-based classification is more difficult to meet than our rational basis test . . . it was easier for Congress to show a pattern of state constitutional violations."[75] Consequently, the Court upheld an across-the-board, routine employment benefit for all eligible employees as a congruent and proportional response to the "state-sanctioned" gender stereotypes.

Nine years after Hibbs, the Court returned to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), this time to consider the Act's "self care" (personal medical) leave provisions. There, in Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Md., a four-Justice plurality, joined by concurring Justice Antonin Scalia, found the self care provisions too attenuated from the gender protective roots of the family care provisions to merit heightened consideration.[76] According to the plurality, the self care provisions were intended to ameliorate discrimination based on illness, not sex. The plurality observed that paid sick leave and disability protection were almost universally available to state employees without intended or incidental gender bias. The addition of unpaid self care leave to this state benefit might help some women suffering pregnancy related illness, but the establishment of a broad self care leave program under the FMLA was not a proportional or congruent remedy to protect any constitutionally based right under the circumstances.[77]

The Court in Tennessee v. Lane[78] held that Congress could authorize damage suits against a state for failing to provide disabled persons physical access to its courts. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides that no qualified person shall be excluded or denied the benefits of a public program by reason of a disability,[79] but since disability is not a suspect class, the application of Title II against states would seem questionable under the reasoning of Garrett.[80] Here, however, the Court evaluated the case as a limit on access to court proceedings, which, in some instances, has been held to be a fundamental right subject to heightened scrutiny under the Due Process Clause.[81]

Reviewing the legislative history of the ADA, the Court found that Title II, as applied, was a congruent and proportional response to a Congressional finding of "a backdrop of pervasive unequal treatment in the administration of state services and programs, including systematic deprivations of fundamental rights."[82] Rather, in an indication of a more robust approach where protection of fundamental rights is at issue, the majority also relied more broadly on a history of state limitations on the rights of the disabled in areas such as marriage or voting, and on limitations of access to public services beyond the use of courts.[83]

Congress's authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity is strongest when a state's conduct at issue in a case is alleged to have actually violated a constitutional right. In United States v. Georgia,[84] a disabled state prison inmate who used a wheelchair for mobility alleged that his treatment by the State of Georgia and the conditions of his confinement violated, among other things, Title II of the ADA and the Eighth Amendment (as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment). A unanimous Court found that, to the extent that the prisoner's claims under Title II for money damages were based on conduct that independently violated the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, they could be applied against the state. In doing so, the Court declined to apply the congruent and proportional response test, distinguishing the cases applying that standard (discussed above) as not generally involving allegations of direct constitutional violations.[85]

  1. ↑ Civil Rights Act of 1866, ch. 31, 14 Stat. 27; the Enforcement Act of 1870, ch. 114, 16 Stat. 140; Act of February 28, 1871, ch. 99, 16 Stat. 433; the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, ch. 22, 17 Stat. 13; Civil Rights Act of 1875; 18 Stat. 335. The modern provisions surviving of these statutes are 18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-83, 1985-1986, and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. Two lesser statutes were the Slave Kidnaping Act of 1866, ch. 86, 14 Stat. 50, and the Peonage Abolition Act, ch. 187, 14 Stat. 546, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1581-88, and 42 U.S.C. § 1994.
  2. ↑ See generally R. Carr, Federal Protection of Civil Rights: Quest for a Sword (1947).
  3. ↑ For cases under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242 in their previous codifications, see United States v. Mosley, 238 U.S. 383 (1915); United States v. Gradwell, 243 U.S. 476 (1917); United States v. Bathgate, 246 U.S. 220 (1918); United States v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281 (1920). The resurgence of the use of these statutes began with United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941), and Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91 (1945).
  4. ↑ The 1957 and 1960 Acts primarily concerned voting; the public accommodations provisions of the 1964 Act and the housing provisions of the 1968 Act were premised on the commerce power.
  5. ↑ United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966); Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966). The development of congressional enforcement powers in these cases was paralleled by a similar expansion of the enforcement powers of Congress with regard to the Thirteenth Amendment, Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968). South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966).
  6. ↑ 82 Stat. 73, 18 U.S.C. § 245.
  7. ↑ Section 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, 28 U.S.C. § 1443. See Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 318 (1880); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880). The statute is of limited utility because of the interpretation placed on it almost from the beginning. Compare Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780 (1966), with City of Greenwood v. Peacock, 384 U.S. 808 (1966).
  8. ↑ 18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242. See Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91 (1945); Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97 (1951); United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966); United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787 (1966); United States v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 563 (1968).
  9. ↑ 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961); see also 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), construed in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88 (1971).
  10. ↑ Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880).
  11. ↑ United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787 (1966).
  12. ↑ Both 18 U.S.C. § 242 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 contain language restricting application to deprivations under color of state law, whereas 18 U.S.C. § 241 lacks such language. The newest statute, 18 U.S.C. § 245, contains, of course, no such language. On the meaning of "custom" as used in the "under color of" phrase, see Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970).
  13. ↑ E.g., the problem of "specific intent" in Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91 (1945), and Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97 (1951), and the problem of what "right or privilege" is "secured" to a person by the Constitution and laws of the United States, which divided the Court in United States v. Williams, 341 U.S. 70 (1951), and which was resolved in United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787 (1966).
  14. ↑ 18 Stat. 335, §§ 1, 2.
  15. ↑ 109 U.S. 3 (1883). The Court also rejected the Thirteenth Amendment foundation for the statute, a foundation revived by Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968).
  16. ↑ 109 U.S. at 11. Justice John Harlan's dissent reasoned that Congress had the power to protect rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment against invasion by both state and private action, but also viewed places of public accommodation as serving a quasi-public function that satisfied the state action requirement in any event. Id. at 46-48, 56-57.
  17. ↑ 92 U.S. 542 (1876). The action was pursuant to § 6 of the 1870 Enforcement Act, ch. 114, 16 Stat. 140, the predecessor of 18 U.S.C. § 241.
  18. ↑ 106 U.S. 629 (1883). The case held unconstitutional a provision of § 2 of the 1871 Act, ch. 22, 17 Stat. 13.
  19. ↑ See also Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U.S. 678 (1887); Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1 (1906); United States v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281 (1920). Under the Fifteenth Amendment, see James v. Bowman, 190 U.S. 127 (1903).
  20. ↑ United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 552-53, 556 (1876). The rights that the Court assumed the United States could protect against private interference were the right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances and the right to vote free of interference on racial grounds in a federal election.
  21. ↑ Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651 (1884); United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941).
  22. ↑ Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263 (1892).
  23. ↑ In re Quarles and Butler, 158 U.S. 532 (1895). See also United States v. Waddell, 112 U.S. 76 (1884) (right to homestead).
  24. ↑ United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966); Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88 (1971).
  25. ↑ 341 U.S. 70 (1951).
  26. ↑ 383 U.S. 787 (1966) (Due Process Clause).
  27. ↑ 383 U.S. 745 (1966) (Equal Protection Clause).
  28. ↑ Justice William Brennan's opinion, 383 U.S. at 774, was joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William O. Douglas. His statement that "[a] majority of the members of the Court expresses the view today that § 5 empowers Congress to enact laws punishing all conspiracies to interfere with the exercise of Fourteenth Amendment rights, whether or not state officers or others acting under the color of state law are implicated in the conspiracy," id. at 782 (emphasis by the Justice), was based upon the language of Justice Thomas Clark, joined by Justices Hugo Black and Abe Fortas, id. at 761, that, because Justice William Brennan had reached the issue, the three Justices were also of the view "that there now can be no doubt that the specific language of § 5 empowers the Congress to enact laws punishing all conspiracies--with or without state action--that interfere with Fourteenth Amendment rights." Id. at 762. In the opinion of the Court, Justice Potter Stewart disclaimed any intention of speaking of Congress's power under Section 5. Id. at 755.
  29. ↑ 383 U.S. at 782.
  30. ↑ 383 U.S. at 777-79, 784.
  31. ↑ 529 U.S. 598 (2000).
  32. ↑ Pub. L. No. 103-322, § 40302, 108 Stat. 1941, 42 U.S.C. § 13981.
  33. ↑ 529 U.S. at 621 (quoting Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13 (1948), for the proposition that the Amendment "erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful").
  34. ↑ This holding may have broader significance for federal civil rights law. For instance, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (a civil statute paralleling the criminal statute held unconstitutional in United States v. Harris) lacks a "color of law" requirement. Although the requirement was read into it in Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.S. 651 (1951), to avoid constitutional problems, it was read out again in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 97 (1971) (although it might be "difficult to conceive of what might constitute a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws by private persons . . . there is nothing inherent in the phrase that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State"). What the unanimous Court held in Griffin was that an "intent to deprive of equal protection, or equal privileges and immunities, means that there must be some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators' action." Id. at 102. As so construed, the statute was held constitutional as applied in the complaint before the Court on the basis of the Thirteenth Amendment and the right to travel; there was no necessity therefore, to consider Congress's powers under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 107.The lower courts have been quite divided with respect to what constitutes a non-racial, class-based animus, and what constitutional protections must be threatened before a private conspiracy can be reached under § 1985(3). See, e.g., Action v. Gannon, 450 F.2d 1227 (8th Cir. 1971); Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190 (7th Cir. 1972); Great American Fed. S. & L. Ass'n v. Novotny, 584 F.2d 1235 (3d Cir. 1978) (en banc), rev'd, 442 U.S. 366 (1979); Scott v. Moore, 680 F.2d 979 (5th Cir. 1982) (en banc). The Court's decision in Morrison, however, appears to preclude the use of § 1985(3) in relation to Fourteenth Amendment rights absent some state action.
  35. ↑ 109 U.S. 3, 13-14 (1883).
  36. ↑ Cf. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cr.) 137 (1803).
  37. ↑ 383 U.S. 745, 783 and n.7 (1966) (concurring and dissenting).
  38. ↑ 384 U.S. 641 (1966). Besides the ground of decision discussed here, Morgan also advanced an alternative ground for upholding the statute. That is, Congress might have overridden the state law not because the law itself violated the Equal Protection Clause but because being without the vote meant the class of persons was subject to discriminatory state and local treatment and giving these people the ballot would afford a means of correcting that situation. The statute therefore was an appropriate means to enforce the Equal Protection Clause under "necessary and proper" standards. Id. at 652-653. A similar "necessary and proper" approach underlay South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966), under the Fifteenth Amendment's Enforcement Clause.
  39. ↑ 79 Stat. 439, 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(e).
  40. ↑ 384 U.S. at 648.
  41. ↑ Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45 (1959).
  42. ↑ Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 653-56 (1966).
  43. ↑ 384 U.S. at 668. Justice Potter Stewart joined this dissent.
  44. ↑ 384 U.S. at 651 n.10. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for the Court quoted and reiterated Justice William Brennan's language in Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 731-33 (1982).
  45. ↑ 82 Stat. 73, 18 U.S.C. § 245. See S. Rep. No. 721, 90th Congress, 1st Sess. 6-7 (1967). See also 82 Stat. 81, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq.
  46. ↑ Title II, Omnibus Safe Streets and Crime Control Act, 82 Stat. 210, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3501, 3502. See S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Congress, 2d Sess. 53-63 (1968). The cases that were subjects of the legislation were Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967), insofar as federal criminal trials were concerned.
  47. ↑ Titles II and III of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 316, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973aa-1, 1973bb.
  48. ↑ Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970).
  49. ↑ 400 U.S. at 229, 278-81 (Brennan, White, and Marshall, JJ.), id. at 135, 141-44 (Douglas, J.).
  50. ↑ 400 U.S. at 152, 204-09 (Harlan, J.).
  51. ↑ 400 U.S. at 119, 126-31 (Black, J.).
  52. ↑ The age reduction provision could be sustained "only if Congress has the power not only to provide the means of eradicating situations that amount to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, but also to determine as a matter of substantive constitutional law what situations fall within the ambit of the Clause, and what state interests are 'compelling.'" 400 U.S. at 296 (Stewart and Blackmun, JJ., and Burger, C.J.). In their view, Congress did not have that power and Morgan did not confer it. But in voting to uphold the residency and absentee provision, the Justices concluded that "Congress could rationally conclude that the imposition of durational residency requirements unreasonably burdens and sanctions the privilege of taking up residence in another State" without reaching an independent determination of their own that the requirements did in fact have that effect. Id. at 286.
  53. ↑ See discussion of City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 173-83 (1980), under the Fifteenth Amendment Right of Citizens to Vote. See also Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 476-78 (1980) (plurality opinion of Burger, C.J., ), and id. at 500-02 (Powell, J., concurring).
  54. ↑ The Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, Pub. L. No. 97-205, 96 Stat. 131, amending 42 U.S.C. § 1973, were designed to overturn City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1980). A substantial change of direction in Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613 (1982), handed down coextensively with congressional enactment, seems to have brought Congress and the Court into essential alignment, thereby avoiding a possible constitutional conflict.
  55. ↑ See The Human Life Bill: Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress, lst Sess. (1981). An elaborate constitutional analysis of the bill appears in Estreicher, Congressional Power and Constitutional Rights: Reflections on Proposed 'Human Life' Legislation, 68 Va. L. Rev. 333 (1982).
  56. ↑ 521 U.S. 507 (1997).
  57. ↑ Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq.
  58. ↑ 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
  59. ↑ 521 U.S. at 533.
  60. ↑ 521 U.S. at 532-33. The Court found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was "so far out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior." Id.
  61. ↑ Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996) (Article I powers may not be used to abrogate a state's Eleventh Amendment immunity, but Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976), holding that Congress may abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity in exercise of Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power, remains good law). See discussion pp. 1533-37.
  62. ↑ 527 U.S. 627 (1999).
  63. ↑ 527 U.S. at 639-46; see also Allen v. Cooper, 140 S. Ct. 994, 1005-07 (2020) (holding that evidence of unconstitutional state-copyright infringement was not materially different than the record for state-patent infringement at issue in Florida Prepaid); cf. Coll. Sav. Bank v. Fla. Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd., 527 U.S. 666, 673-75 (1999) (concluding that Congress, by subjecting states to suits for false advertisement, exceeded its powers under the Fourteenth Amendment because the statute did not implicate property interests protected by the Due Process Clause).
  64. ↑ 528 U.S. 62 (2000). Again, the issue of the Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment arose because sovereign immunity prevents private actions against states from being authorized under Article I powers such as the Commerce Clause.
  65. ↑ See, e.g., Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991) (applying rational basis test to uphold mandatory retirement age of 70 for state judges).
  66. ↑ 528 U.S. at 86, quoting City of Boerne, 521 U.S. at 532.
  67. ↑ 531 U.S. 356 (2001).
  68. ↑ 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111-12117.
  69. ↑ 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a).
  70. ↑ 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A).
  71. ↑ 473 U.S. 432 (1985).
  72. ↑ 531 U.S. at 368.
  73. ↑ As Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out in the dissent, however, the Court seemed determined to accord Congress a degree of deference more commensurate with review of an agency action, discounting portions of the legislative history as based on secondary source materials, unsupported by evidence and not relevant to the inquiry at hand.
  74. ↑ 538 U.S. 721 (2003).
  75. ↑ 538 U.S. at 736. Statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females are subject to heightened scrutiny, Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197-199 (1976), so they must be substantially related to the achievement of important governmental objectives, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 533 (1996).
  76. ↑ 566 U.S. 30 (2012) (male state employee denied unpaid sick leave).
  77. ↑ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for herself and three others, extensively reviewed the historical and legislative record and concluded that the family care and the self care provisions were of the same cloth. Both provisions grew out of concern for discrimination against pregnant workers, and, the FMLA's leave provisions were not, in the dissent's opinion, susceptible to being rent into separate pieces for analytical purposes.
  78. ↑ 541 U.S. 509 (2004).
  79. ↑ 42 U.S.C. § 12132.
  80. ↑ 531 U.S. 356 (2001).
  81. ↑ See, e.g., Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819, n.15 (1975) (a criminal defendant has a right to be present at all stages of a trial where his absence might frustrate the fairness of the proceedings).
  82. ↑ 541 U.S. at 524.
  83. ↑ 541 U.S. at 524-25. Justice William Rehnquist, in dissent, disputed the reliance of the Congress on evidence of disability discrimination in the provision of services administered by local, not state, governments, as local entities do not enjoy the protections of sovereign immunity. Id. at 542-43. The majority, in response, noted that local courts are generally treated as arms of the state for sovereign immunity purposes, Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280 (1977), and that the action of non-state actors had previously been considered in such pre-Boerne cases as South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 312-15 (1966).
  84. ↑ 546 U.S. 151 (2006).
  85. ↑ "While the Members of this Court have disagreed regarding the scope of Congress's 'prophylactic' enforcement powers under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, no one doubts that § 5 grants Congress the power to 'enforce . . . the provisions' of the Amendment by creating private remedies against the States for actual violations of those provisions." 546 U.S. at 158 (citations omitted).
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