Cite as: 518 U. S. 839 (1996)
Opinion of Souter, J.
may be so but is also beside the point, for the reason that the Government's ability to set capital requirements is not limited by the Bank Board's and FSLIC's promises to make good any losses arising from subsequent regulatory changes. See supra, at 882-883. The answer to the Government's contention that the State cannot barter away certain elements of its sovereign power is that a contract to adjust the risk of subsequent legislative change does not strip the Government of its legislative sovereignty.34
The same response answers the Government's demand for express delegation of any purported authority to fetter the exercise of sovereign power. It is true, of course, that in Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 211 U. S., at 273, we said that "[t]he surrender, by contract, of a power of government, though in certain well-defined cases it may be made by legislative authority, is a very grave act, and the surrender itself, as well as the authority to make it, must be closely scrutinized." Hence, where "a contract has the effect of extinguishing pro tanto an undoubted power of government," we have insisted that "both [the contract's] existence and the authority to make it must clearly and unmistakably appear, and all doubts must be resolved in favor of the continuance of the power." Ibid. But Home Telephone & Telegraph simply has no application to the pres-34 To the extent that Justice Scalia finds the reserved powers doctrine inapplicable because "the private party to the contract does not seek to stay the exercise of sovereign authority, but merely requests damages for breach of contract," post, at 923, he appears to adopt a distinction between contracts of indemnity and contracts not to change the law similar to the unmistakability analysis he rejects. He also suggests that the present case falls outside the "core governmental powers" that cannot be surrendered under the reserved powers doctrine, but this suggestion is inconsistent with our precedents. See Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 817 (1880) ("[T]he legislature cannot bargain away the police power of a State"); Veix v. Sixth Ward Building & Loan Assn. of Newark, 310 U. S. 32, 38 (1940) (recognizing that thrift regulation is within the police power).
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