The doctrine was first announced by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision written by then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, Fitzpatrick v.
[3] Bitzer "continued the line of reasoning that Rehnquist had acknowledged in Fry v. United States ... that cases involving Congress’ authority under Section 5 present different problems than cases involving the Congress’s Commerce Clause authority.
In order to do this, the Congress must "mak[e] its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.
"[5] Another limitation that the courts have read into Congressional power to abrogate is the "congruence and proportionality" test, first discussed in City of Boerne v.
An example of a case where an act of the Congress failed the Boerne test is Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents.