How Many Laws Has the Supreme Court Declared Unconstitutional?

The Supreme Court’s role in judging the constitutionality of Acts of Congress has been in the news this week, so an obvious question is: Just how many laws has the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional? Google that and you’ll get some good answers, including the top hit, from WikiAnswers:



But these answers don’t provide the full citation to a source you can cite, just a vague reference to where the answers came from, the Congressional Research Service.

Luckily, the law library has the source that provided these numbers: The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation (Reference, Reserve, KF.4527.U54). This two-volume set is a great compendium of information, interpretation, and miscellaneous trivia about the Constitution from, yes, the Congressional Research Service.



Its 2600+ pages provide a clause-by-clause examination of the Constitution and a lot of other useful resources that you can’t easily find anywhere else including, yes, a list of “Acts of Congress Held Unconstitutional in Whole or in Part by the Supreme Court of the United States.”



The list starts on page 2117 (in the second volume of the print set), and lists 158 Acts of Congress held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. But that’s only as of the 2002 edition: the 2010 supplement includes seven more, for a total of 165 Acts.

The entire 2630 pages of this set is available online the Government Printing Office’s Federal Digital System (“FDSys”). But its only available as a VERY BIG PDF file. So here’s an excerpt, with just the combined lists showing those 165 Acts, through 2010, that were held to be unconstitutional, in whole or in part, by the Supreme Court:
Acts of Congress Held Unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court