Under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress may

• A. Create new rights
• B. Expand the scope of existing rights
• C. Enforce existing rights by appropriate legislation but not create or expand rights
• D. Abrogate state sovereignty

Answer: (C)

Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees by passing appropriate legislation. That enforcement authority is about remedies, procedures, and penalties to prevent or remedy violations by the states, not about creating new rights or widening the substantive protections the Amendment already provides. So Congress can act to enforce existing rights, but it cannot invent new rights or broaden the rights beyond what the Supreme Court has recognized. It also doesn’t erase state sovereignty; it targets state action to ensure compliance with the Amendment. For example, federal civil rights statutes enacted under Section 5 are meant to enforce the Amendment’s guarantees against discriminatory state action.