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Congress Promotes A Minimum Drinking Age

1987

Congress passes legislation to reduce a state’s highway funding if that state does not increase the minimum drinking age to twenty-one. South Dakota challenges the law as a violation of its power to regulate alcohol under the Twenty-first Amendment. In South Dakota v. Dole, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that Congress has legitimately used its spending power to promote the public welfare and sees no conflict with the Twenty-first Amendment.