Cite as: 521 U. S. 507 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
gions of the country where voting discrimination had been most flagrant, see 383 U. S., at 315, and affected a discrete class of state laws, i. e., state voting laws. Furthermore, to ensure that the reach of the Voting Rights Act was limited to those cases in which constitutional violations were most likely (in order to reduce the possibility of overbreadth), the coverage under the Act would terminate "at the behest of States and political subdivisions in which the danger of substantial voting discrimination has not materialized during the preceding five years." Id., at 331. The provisions restricting and banning literacy tests, upheld in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966), and Oregon v. Mitchell, supra, attacked a particular type of voting qualification, one with a long history as a "notorious means to deny and abridge voting rights on racial grounds." South Carolina v. Katzen-bach, 383 U. S., at 355 (Black, J., concurring and dissenting). In City of Rome, supra, the Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of a Voting Rights Act provision which required certain jurisdictions to submit changes in electoral practices to the Department of Justice for preimplementation review. The requirement was placed only on jurisdictions with a history of intentional racial discrimination in voting. Id., at 177. Like the provisions at issue in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, this provision permitted a covered jurisdiction to avoid preclearance requirements under certain conditions and, moreover, lapsed in seven years. This is not to say, of course, that § 5 legislation requires termination dates, geographic restrictions, or egregious predicates. Where, however, a congressional enactment pervasively prohibits constitutional state action in an effort to remedy or to prevent unconstitutional state action, limitations of this kind tend to ensure Congress' means are proportionate to ends legitimate under § 5.
The stringent test RFRA demands of state laws reflects a lack of proportionality or congruence between the means adopted and the legitimate end to be achieved. If an objector can show a substantial burden on his free exercise, the
533
Page: Index Previous 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007