WASHINGTON
The US Supreme Court is spearheading a major realignment of the power
balance between the states and the federal government. And, once again, the
states are winning.
At issue: what a majority on the court views as Congress's unrestrained use
of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. They see federal lawmakers
using it to justify a seeming unlimited range of legislative initiatives -
many of which have nothing to do with the regulation of commerce.
Yesterday, the nation's highest court said, in effect, enough is enough.
By a 5-to-4 vote, the court's conservative wing overturned a key portion of
a federal law that empowered victims of gender-based violence to sue their
attackers in federal court for civil damages. The majority ruled that
Congress overstepped its authority under the Commerce Clause when it passed
the Violence Against Women Act in 1994.
"Gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense of the phrase,
economic activity," writes Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the majority
opinion.
"We accordingly reject the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic,
violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on
interstate commerce," the chief justice adds in an opinion joined by
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony
Kennedy.
In a sharply worded dissent, Justice David Souter says Congress compiled a
"mountain" of data demonstrating the effects of violence against women on
interstate commerce, including reports on gender bias from task forces in 21
states. He writes that aggregate effects should trigger commerce-clause
authority in Congress.
"Supply and demand for goods in interstate commerce will ... be affected by
the deaths of 2,000 to 4,000 women annually at the hands of domestic
abusers, and by the reduction in the workforce by the 100,000 or more rape
victims who lose their jobs each year or are forced to quit," he writes.
"Violence against women may be found to affect interstate commerce and
affect it substantially."
The decision is drawing criticism from women's rights groups, many of whom
lobbied Congress for the legislation. "We are extremely disappointed and
concerned that the court's continued march toward states' rights is cutting
women out of the Constitution," says Martha Davis of the National
Organization of Women Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Opponents of the law welcome the court's ruling as evidence that a majority
of justices are serious about efforts to rein in congressional attempts to
expand federal authority into areas the Founding Fathers wished to reserve
to state and local governments.
"It's a good day for the Constitution," says Michael Rosman of the Center
for Individual Rights who argued the case before the Supreme Court.
The decision is significant because it is seen as an important restatement
of the constitutional principle that Congress's power to legislate under the
Commerce Clause is limited to areas that substantially affect interstate
commerce.
The case marks an important affirmation of a 1995 landmark decision that
struck down a federal law criminalizing the possession of a handgun near a
school. The court ruled that guns and schools was an area of local and state
criminal jurisdiction, and that the federal government had no business
attempting to make such offenses federal crimes.
The decision also reaffirmed a 1996 ruling in which the high court struck
down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as an unconstitutional attempt by
Congress to interpret the scope of the Constitution. Consistent with that
earlier ruling, the court struck down a portion of the Violence Against
Women Act because it was aimed at regulating the private behavior of rapists
and violent misogynists. The purpose of the 14th Amendment is to regulate
state action rather than private, criminal action, the court ruled.
It remains unclear to what extent the loss of the Violence Against Women's
Act will leave women vulnerable to acts of gender-motivated violence without
recourse through the law. Critics of the law say it was passed by members of
Congress who were more interested in appearing to safeguard women than in
actually boosting the legal security of women. They say most states already
had similar laws on the books permitting rape victims to sue their victims
in state court for damages.
"What it means is that the state laws against violence against women, which
are there and available, will be invoked as needed. There is no need for the
federal government to be involved. It's just feel-good grandstanding," says
E. Duncan-Getchell, who filed a brief on behalf of the Independent Women's
Forum in Virginia.
But women's rights advocates say the law helped raise awareness among women
and put potential attackers on notice that they would be held accountable
for gender-based violence, even if state and local law-enforcement officials
were unresponsive.
The Supreme Court decision stems from a case of alleged gang rape at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute. No criminal charges were filed, and a
university disciplinary board declined to take harsh action, so the woman
sued for damages under the Violence Against Women Act.
A federal judge threw out the case in 1996, saying Congress had acted
outside its Commerce Clause authority when passing the law. That ruling was
ultimately affirmed by the appeals court.
The appeals-court decision covered 113 pages and reads in part like a
manifesto demanding a return to a government of checks and balances designed
by the Founding Fathers. |
