Katzenbach v. Morgan’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
473 federal appellate · 176 district · 183 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,601 later decisions (141 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
473 federal appellate · 176 district · 183 state decisions — followed in 24 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia District Court)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1252 · 28 U.S.C. § 2403 · 42 U.S.C. § 1973B (§ 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1973L (§ 14 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1994 · 8 U.S.C. § 1423 (§ 312 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter))
Relies on Reynolds v. Sims · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland
Cited together with Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer · Oregon v. Mitchell · Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida · City of Boerne v. Flores · South Carolina v. Katzenbach
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,601 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“statute is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did,”
124 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“(i)t would confine the legislative power in this context to the insignificant role of abrogating only those state laws that the judicial branch was prepared to adjudge unconstitutional, or of merely informing the judgment of the judiciary by particularizing the 'majestic generalities' of § 1 of the Amendment.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.