Cite as: 521 U. S. 507 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
perpetuation of 95 years of pervasive voting discrimination is both unsurprising and unassailable"); Morgan, 384 U. S., at 656 (Congress had a factual basis to conclude that New York's literacy requirement "constituted an invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause").
3
Any suggestion that Congress has a substantive, non-remedial power under the Fourteenth Amendment is not supported by our case law. In Oregon v. Mitchell, supra, at 112, a majority of the Court concluded Congress had exceeded its enforcement powers by enacting legislation lowering the minimum age of voters from 21 to 18 in state and local elections. The five Members of the Court who reached this conclusion explained that the legislation intruded into an area reserved by the Constitution to the States. See 400 U. S., at 125 (concluding that the legislation was unconstitutional because the Constitution "reserves to the States the power to set voter qualifications in state and local elections") (opinion of Black, J.); id., at 154 (explaining that the "Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to restrict the authority of the States to allocate their political power as they see fit") (opinion of Harlan, J.); id., at 294 (concluding that States, not Congress, have the power "to establish a qualification for voting based on age") (opinion of Stewart, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Blackmun, J.). Four of these five were explicit in rejecting the position that § 5 endowed Congress with the power to establish the meaning of constitutional provisions. See id., at 209 (opinion of Harlan, J.); id., at 296 (opinion of Stewart, J.). Justice Black's rejection of this position might be inferred from his disagreement with Congress' interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. See id., at 125.
There is language in our opinion in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966), which could be interpreted as acknowledging a power in Congress to enact legislation that expands
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