368
Blackmun, J., dissenting
ment is "too vague and amorphous" for judicial enforcement. We acknowledged that the State has "substantial discretion" in choosing among various methods of calculating reimbursement rates. Id., at 519; see also id., at 505-508. A State's discretion in determining how to calculate what rates are "reasonable and adequate," we concluded, "may affect the standard under which a court reviews" the State's reimbursement plan, but it does not make the right to reasonable reimbursement judicially unenforceable. Id., at 519.
C
These principles, as we applied them in Wilder, require the conclusion that the Adoption Act's "reasonable efforts" clause 1 establishes a right enforceable under § 1983. Each of the three elements of our three-part test is satisfied. First, and most obvious, the plaintiff children in this case are clearly the intended beneficiaries of the requirement that the State make "reasonable efforts" to prevent unnecessary removal and to reunify temporarily removed children with their families.
Second, the "reasonable efforts" clause imposes a binding obligation on the State because it is "cast in mandatory rather than precatory terms," providing that a participating State "shall have a plan approved by the Secretary which . . . shall be in effect in all political subdivisions of the State, and, if administered by them, be mandatory upon them." Further, the statute requires the plan to "provid[e] that, in each case, reasonable efforts will be made." Moreover, as
1 "In order for a State to be eligible for payments under this part, it shall have a plan approved by the Secretary which—. . . (3) provides that the plan shall be in effect in all political subdivisions of the State, and, if administered by them, be mandatory upon them; [and] . . . (15) . . . provides that, in each case, reasonable efforts will be made (A) prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the child from his home, and (B) to make it possible for the child to return to his home." 42 U. S. C. § 671(a).
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