Cite as: 514 U. S. 211 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
volved the review of a judgment entered by a territorial court, the "judicial power" to which the opinion referred was this Court's Article III appellate jurisdiction. If Congress may enact a law authorizing this Court to reopen decisions that we previously lacked power to review, Congress must have the power to let district courts reopen their own judgments.
Also apposite is United States v. Sioux Nation, 448 U. S. 371 (1980), which involved the Sioux Nation's longstanding claim that the Government had in 1877 improperly abrogated the treaty by which the Sioux had held title to the Black Hills. The Sioux first brought their claim under a special 1920 jurisdictional statute. The Court of Claims dismissed the suit in 1942, holding that the 1920 Act did not give the court jurisdiction to consider the adequacy of the compensation the Government had paid in 1877. Congress passed a new jurisdictional statute in 1946, and in 1950 the Sioux brought a new action. In 1975 the Court of Claims, although acknowledging the merit of the Sioux's claim, held that the res judicata effect of the 1942 dismissal barred the suit. In response, Congress passed a statute in 1978 that authorized the Court of Claims to take new evidence and instructed it to consider the Sioux's claims on the merits, disregarding res judicata. The Sioux finally prevailed. We held that the 1978 Act did not violate the separation of powers. 448 U. S., at 407.
The Court correctly notes, see ante, at 230-231, and n. 5, that our opinion in Sioux Nation prominently discussed precedents establishing Congress' power to waive the res judicata effect of judgments against the United States. We never suggested, however, that those precedents sufficed to overcome the separation-of-powers objections raised against the 1978 Act. Instead, we made extensive comments about the propriety of Congress' action that were as necessary to our holding then as they are salient to the Court's analysis today. In passing the 1978 Act, we held, Congress
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