Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
posed a number of restrictions upon the habeas remedy, see, e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b) (requiring exhaustion of state remedies prior to bringing a federal habeas petition), and this Court has articulated several more, see, e. g., McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991) (abuse of the writ); Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989) (limiting applicability of "new rules" on habeas); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993) (applying a more deferential harmless-error standard on habeas review). By suggesting that Ex parte Young provides a free-standing remedy not subject to the restrictions otherwise imposed on federal remedial schemes (such as habeas corpus), the Court suggests that a state prisoner may circumvent these restrictions by ostensibly bringing his suit under Young rather than 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The Court's view implies similar consequences under any number of similarly structured federal statutory schemes.63
This, of course, cannot be the law, and the plausible rationale for rejecting the Court's contrary assumption is that Congress has just as much authority to regulate suits when jurisdiction depends on Young as it has to regulate when Young is out of the jurisdictional picture. If Young does not preclude Congress from requiring state exhaustion in habeas cases (and it clearly does not), then Young does not bar the application of IGRA's procedures when effective relief is sought by suing a state officer.
3
The Court's third strand of reasoning for displacing Ex parte Young is a supposed inference that Congress so in-63 Many other federal statutes impose obligations on state officials, the enforcement of which is subject to "intricate provisions" also statutorily provided. See, e. g., Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1365(a) (citizen-suit provision to enforce States' obligations under federal environmental law); Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act, 42 U. S. C. § 11001 (privately enforceable requirement that States form commissions, appointed by the Governor, to generate plans for addressing hazardous material emergencies).
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