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One of the myths of our political system is that the
Supreme Court has the last word on the scope and meaning of federal law. But time
and time again, Congress has shown its dissatisfaction with Supreme Court
interpretations of laws it passes--by amending or re-enacting the legislation to
clarify its original intent and overrule a contrary Court construction.
The Supreme Court often insists that Congress cannot really "overrule"
its decisions on what a law means: The justices' interpretation has to be correct
since the Constitution gives final say to the highest court in the land. But
Congress certainly has the power to pass a new or revised law that "changes" or
"reverses" the meaning or scope of the law as interpreted by the Court, and the
legislative history of the new law usually states that it was intended to
"overrule" a specific Court decision.
Often the reversal is in highly technical areas, such as the statute of
limitations in securities-fraud cases, the jurisdiction of tribal courts on
Indian reservations, or the power of state courts to order denaturalization of
citizens. But in the last 20 years, a main target of congressional "overruling"
has been the Supreme Court's decisions in the area of civil rights.
In 1982, for example, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to
overrule a narrow Supreme Court holding in Mobile v. Bolden, a 1980 decision
that addressed whether intentional discrimination must be shown before the act
could be invoked. In 1988, Congress overruled another Supreme Court decision (in
the 1984 case Grove City College v. Bell) by passing the Civil Rights
Restoration Act, which broadened the coverage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964. The legislative history of that law specifically recited that "certain
aspects of recent decisions and opinions of the Supreme Court have unduly
narrowed or cast doubt upon" a number of federal civil rights statutes and that
"legislative action is necessary to restore the prior consistent and
long-standing executive branch interpretations" of those laws.
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