Courts decisions cause congressional follow on- avoids politics fights

T he above inventory, whil e signifi cant, merely scratches the surfa ce of possibl e congressio nal responses to Supreme Co urt decisio ns. Congress, for example, may enact legislation that seeks to limit the reach of Supreme Court rulings. After the Supreme Cou rt upheld abo rti on rights in Roe v. Wade, 4 10 U.S. 11 3 ( 1973), Congress blocked the use of Medica id and orher federal funds to pay for abortions. Congress also o ffe red reli gious orga nizations federal funds to promote sexual abstinence as a method of birth control. T he Supreme COUIT ap proved both of these sta[Utes and , in so doing, val idated Congress's use of its appropriation powers to respond to Supreme Court rulings (Harris 1). ae, 448 U.S. 297 [1980]). T he Supreme Court also uph eld a 2003 federal statute prohibiting intact dilations and ex tractions, enacted in response to a 2000 Court ruling that a state ban on socalled partial birth abortions was unconstitutionally vague (Gonzales v. Cmhart, 550 U.S. _ (2007 1). Co ngress may also respond to a Supreme Court decision by reenacting a statute that the Court struck down. Fo r example, Congress strongly d isagreed with the Court's 1918 ruling thar the commerce powe r could not be used to regulate child labo r (Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 25 1 [19 18]). The very nex t year, Congress sought to make use of an alternative power (the taxing power) to enact child labor legislation . Again, the Supreme Court struck the statute down (Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U.S. 20 [1922]). In 1938, afte r the Court's composition had changed, Congress aga in based child labor legislation o n commerce clause legislation that a unanimo us Court upheld (United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 [1941]). Congress has also taken aim at Court decisions through its powers to enfo rce the Fourteenth (equal prorection) and Fifteenth (voting rights) Amendments. Rejecting a 1980 Supreme Court decision requiring civil rights plaintiffs to prove intentional discrimination in vote d ilution cases (Mo bile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 [1980]), Congress amended the Voting Rights Act to allow for impact-based proof.~ of vote dilution. Congress likewise disapproved of the 1990 Supreme Coun decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 ( 1990) that limired rhe abiliry of plaintiffs to succeed in religious liberty lawsuits, and enacted legislatio n thar required governmental actors to have a "compelling governmental interest" whenever religious libeny was " burdened. " This legislation , the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), was subsequently invalidated by the Supreme Court in City of Boerne 1). Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997). Unwilling to accept defeat, Congress enacted a scaled down version of the RFRA, rhe Religious Land Use and lnsrirlltionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a statute thar the Supreme Court upheld (against a preliminalY challenge) in 2005 (Cutter v. Willeinson, 544 U.S. 709 [2005]). The RLU1PA statute highlights Congress's willingness to respond to a Court ruling by advancing its policy agenda in ways thar it thinks the Court will approve. When enacting RLUIPA, lawmakers paid close arrention to the Supreme Court decision invalidating the RFRA with Boerne v. Flores, 52 1 U.S. 507 (997), seeking to advance their policy agenda while not calling into question the Court's handiwork. Likewise, afrer the Supreme Court invalidated a stature banning guns within 1,000 fee l' of a school (as an impermissible exercise of Congress's commerce power) in United States v. Lopez, 5 14 U.S. 548 (1995), Congress amended the G un-Free School Zones Act to require the federal government to prove th at th e firea rm had either moved in inrersrate commerce or otherwise afFecred interstate commerce. Another way that Congress expresses its disagreement wirh the Supreme Court is to protecr rights rhat the Court says it need not protecr. Following a 1986 Supreme Court decision upholding an Air Force regulatio n that had prohibited an observant Jew fro m wearing a yarmulke in Golden v. Weinburger, 475 U.S. 503, Congress enacted legislation allowing service members to express their faith by wearing neat and conservarive religiOUS apparel. In 1999, Congress responded to concerns that independenr counsels were overzealous when investigating high-ranking 402 EN CYC L. O PED IA 0 1' THE SUPREME COU RT 0 1' T H E UN ITED ST ATES executive branch officials. Specifically, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's lopsided seven-to-one approval of this statute with the decision of Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, in 1988, Congress concluded that the statute was fundamentally flawed and ought not to be reauthorized with the Ethics in Government Act. Congressional responses to Supreme Court decisions are not always hostile. Sometimes the Court invites Congress to enact legislation that would effectively negate a Court ruling. For example, when upholding state power to issue search warrants of newspapers, the Court invited a legislative response noting that its decision " does nor prevent or advise against legislative or executive efforts to establish nonconsititutional protections against possible abuses of the search warrant procedure" (Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 [1978]). Congress accepted the invitation, passing the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 to prohibit third-party searches of newspapers. On other occasions, Congress affirmatively assists in the implementation of a Court decision . In response to resistance in the South to school desegregation, Congress took bold steps to make Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a reality. In 1964, it prohibited segregated school systems from receiving federal aid and authorized the Department of] ustice to file desegregation lawsuits. These federal efforrs proved critical to ending dual school systems. More desegregation took place the year after these legislative programs took effect than in the decade following Brown. As the above discussion makes clear, the Supreme Court does not speak the last word on the meaning of federal statutes or the Constitution. Congress can nullifY Supreme Court interpretations of federal statutes by enacting a new statute or amending an existing law. On constitutional issues, the dynamic is more complex. Congress can respond to Supreme Court constitutional rulings through a variety of techniques, r3.nging from the enactment of the very same statute to the confirmation of Supreme Court justices who are likely to distinguish or overturn disfavored rulings. Through these varied responses to Supreme Court rulings, Congress plays a critical role in shaping constitutional values.