Supreme Court declares acts of Congress unconstitutional

Laws permitting public employees to sue state employers for discrimination on the basis of disability and age, and also giving women access to federal court to sue rapists for damages, ran up against the court's new definition of the limits on Congress's power and the justices' insistence that they alone have the final word in interpreting the Constitution.

"I take umbrage at what the court has said, and so do my colleagues," Senator Specter told Judge Roberts.

From 1995 to 2003, the Supreme Court overturned all or parts of 33 federal statutes, 10 of them on the ground that Congress had exceeded its authority either to regulate interstate commerce or to enforce the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection. Until then, the modern court gave Congress wide berth to define its own role under both of the Constitution's relevant provisions, the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment.


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