384
Breyer, J., dissenting
(1976) (refusing to invalidate a law based on the Equal Protection Clause because a disparate-impact standard "should await legislative prescription"). Cf. Mitchell, supra, at 284 (Stewart, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("Congress may paint with a much broader brush than may this Court, which must confine itself to the judicial function of deciding individual cases and controversies upon individual records"). In short, the Court's claim that "to uphold the Act's application to the States would allow Congress to rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment law laid down by this Court in Cleburne," ante, at 374, is repudiated by Cleburne itself.
There is simply no reason to require Congress, seeking to determine facts relevant to the exercise of its § 5 authority, to adopt rules or presumptions that reflect a court's institutional limitations. Unlike courts, Congress can readily gather facts from across the Nation, assess the magnitude of a problem, and more easily find an appropriate remedy. Cf. Cleburne, supra, at 442-443 (addressing the problems of the "large and diversified group" of persons with disabilities "is a difficult and often a technical matter, very much a task for legislators guided by qualified professionals and not by the perhaps ill-informed opinions of the judiciary"). Unlike courts, Congress directly reflects public attitudes and beliefs, enabling Congress better to understand where, and to what extent, refusals to accommodate a disability amount to behavior that is callous or unreasonable to the point of lacking constitutional justification. Unlike judges, Members of Congress can directly obtain information from constituents who have firsthand experience with discrimination and related issues.
Moreover, unlike judges, Members of Congress are elected. When the Court has applied the majority's burden of proof rule, it has explained that we, i. e., the courts, do not " 'sit as a superlegislature to judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations.' " Heller, 509 U. S., at 319
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