For Congress’s authority to pass Section 249(a)(1), it purported to rely on the Thirteenth Amendment, which bans slavery and involuntary servitude. Yet it didn’t claim that in passing that section its aim was to prevent slavery from returning (and if it had made such claim nobody would have believed it). It’s clear that Congress wanted to eliminate hate crimes for the sake of eliminating hate crimes. That is actually a perfectly understandable goal, but it isn’t a goal that can be justified by the Thirteenth Amendment.

To give you a taste of our argument, here is selection from the Brief’s Summary of the Argument…