296
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
ple should apply in Young cases. That is, where Congress prescribes a detailed remedial scheme for enforcement of a statutory right, a court should not lift the Eleventh Amendment bar to apply its "full remedial powers" in a suit against an officer in a manner inconsistent with the legislative scheme. 517 U. S., at 75. The single citation to a Bivens case in Seminole Tribe by no means establishes that a case-by-case balancing approach to the Young doctrine is appropriate or consistent with our jurisprudence.
In sum, the principal opinion replaces a straightforward inquiry into whether a complaint alleges an ongoing violation of federal law and seeks relief properly characterized as prospective with a vague balancing test that purports to account for a "broad" range of unspecified factors. Ante, at 280. In applying that approach here, the principal opinion relies on characteristics of this case that do not distinguish it from cases in which the Young doctrine is properly invoked, such as the fact that the complaint names numerous public officials and the fact that the State will have a continuing interest in litigation against its officials. Ante, at 269-270, 282-283. These factors cannot supply a basis for deciding this case. Every Young suit names public officials, and we have never doubted the importance of state interests in cases falling squarely within our past interpretations of the Young doctrine.
While I do not subscribe to the principal opinion's reformulation of the appropriate jurisdictional inquiry for all cases in which a plaintiff invokes the Young doctrine, I nevertheless agree that the Court reaches the correct conclusion here. The Young doctrine rests on the premise that a suit against a state official to enjoin an ongoing violation of federal law is not a suit against the State. Where a plaintiff seeks to divest the State of all regulatory power over submerged lands—in effect, to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction to quiet title to sovereign lands—it simply cannot be said that the suit is not a suit against the State. I would not narrow
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