Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
Press, 59 F. 3d 539, 546-547 (CA5 1995) (After Union Gas, Copyright Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 8, must grant Congress power to abrogate). We agree with petitioner that the plurality opinion in Union Gas allows no principled distinction in favor of the States to be drawn between the Indian Commerce Clause and the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Respondents argue, however, that we need not conclude that the Indian Commerce Clause grants the power to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity. Instead, they contend that if we find the rationale of the Union Gas plurality to extend to the Indian Commerce Clause, then "Union Gas should be reconsidered and overruled." Brief for Respondents 25. Generally, the principle of stare decisis, and the interests that it serves, viz., "the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, . . . reliance on judicial decisions, and . . . the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process," Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827 (1991), counsel strongly against reconsideration of our precedent. Nevertheless, we always have treated stare decisis as a "principle of policy," Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119 (1940), and not as an "inexorable command," Payne, 501 U. S., at 828. "[W]hen governing decisions are unworkable or are badly reasoned, 'this Court has never felt constrained to follow precedent.' " Id., at 827 (quoting Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 665 (1944)). Our willingness to reconsider our earlier decisions has been "particularly true in constitutional cases, because in such cases 'correction through legislative action is practically impossible.' " Payne, supra, at 828 (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 407 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)).
The Court in Union Gas reached a result without an expressed rationale agreed upon by a majority of the Court. We have already seen that Justice Brennan's opinion received the support of only three other Justices. See Union Gas, 491 U. S., at 5 (Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.,
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