who is the final say, as judge clemon said. in the ledbetter case, it is clear that congress can have the final say. in some title vii cases, one issue can be that the court says it has the final say. in a disparate impact claim, justice scalia's concurrence is read as saying, we can choose to have the final say here and overrule congress because we think there is an overriding constitutional issue. in the voting rights act case, that tension is ever-present. we do not have permanent victories in the voting rights act cases. we never have. they keep coming back. there is always tension between what did congress say and what difference is it owed. -- deference is it owed. even if it is owed some deference, should the court exercise its power even where it is clear what congress intended? there were two pieces last year. one was the title seven -- title vii disparate impact case. the other was the voting rights act case. they both have that tension and they are right on the surface. the voting rights act case has to bb read this

who is the final say, asudge clemon said. in the ledbetter case, it is clear that congress can have the final say. in some title vii cases, one issue can be that the court says it has the final say. in a disparate impact claim, justice scalia's concurrence is read as saying, we can choose to have the final say here and overrule congress because we think there is an overriding constitutional issue. in the voting rights act case, that tensions ever-present. we do not have permanent victories in the voting rights act cases. we never have. they keep coming back. there is always tension between what did congress say and what difference is it owed. -- deference is it owed. even if it is owed some deference, should the court exercise its power even where it is clear what congress intended? there were two pieces last year. one was the title seven -- title vii disparate impact case. the other was the voting rights act case. they both have that tension and they are right on the surface. the votingights act case has to bb read this way.

clemons, that's one thing. how the plausibility will be determined will be very different. we have people who do not3 because it has never happened to them. it is critical to having the constitution and forest and having respect for congress that the dentist who enforce the constitution understand what the constitution means and be prepared to defer to congress when appropriate and to overturn congress or state legislatures were inappropriate. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> can i just say one other thing? this is about commerce. i have to say how privileged and delighted i am to be here. the first case i've ever worked on was a case that was u. w.'s. nadler has been a client of mine. payton has been a co-counsel. it is a great thing we had the lead better pact. ledbetter was my client. if i can just tell you about ledbetter. what she got out of it was a t- shirt that said, "the united states now has the only ledbetter pact and all i got was the scrappy t-shirt." [laughter] she did not give back the damages she suffered. fixing the well in the gulf of mexico is not th