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Opinion of Kennedy, J.
the basic law of the Nation, a law to which a State's ties are no less intimate than those of the National Government itself. The separate States and the Government of the United States are bound in the common cause of preserving the whole constitutional order. Federal and state law "together form one system of jurisprudence." Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 137 (1876). It would be error coupled with irony were we to bypass the Eleventh Amendment, which enacts a scheme solicitous of the States, on the sole rationale that state courts are inadequate to enforce and interpret federal rights in every case.
It is a principal concern of the court system in any State to define and maintain a proper balance between the State's courts on one hand, and its officials and administrative agencies on the other. This is of vital concern to States. As the Idaho State Attorney General has explained: "Everywhere a citizen turns—to apply for a life-sustaining public benefit, to obtain a license, to respond to a complaint—it is [administrative law] that governs the way in which their contact with state government will be carried out." EchoHawk, Introduction to Administrative Procedure Act Issue, 30 Idaho L. Rev. 261 (1994). In the States there is an ongoing process by which state courts and state agencies work to elaborate an administrative law designed to reflect the State's own rules and traditions concerning the respective scope of judicial review and administrative discretion. An important case such as the instant one has features which instruct and enrich the elaboration of administrative law that is one of the primary responsibilities of the state judiciary. Where, as here, the parties invoke federal principles to challenge state administrative action, the courts of the State have a strong interest in integrating those sources of law within their own system for the proper judicial control of state officials.
Our precedents do teach us, nevertheless, that where prospective relief is sought against individual state officers in a
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