Cite as: 521 U. S. 261 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
our Young doctrine, but I would not extend it to reach this case. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II-A, and III of the Court's opinion.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
Congress has implemented the Constitution's grant of federal-question jurisdiction by authorizing federal courts to enforce rights arising under the Constitution and federal law. The federal courts have an obligation to exercise that jurisdiction, and in doing so have applied the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), that in the absence of some congressional limitation a federal court may entertain an individual's suit to enjoin a state officer from official action that violates federal law. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho claims that officers of the State of Idaho are acting to regulate land that belongs to the Tribe under federal law, and the Tribe prays for declaratory and injunctive relief to halt the regulation as an ongoing violation of that law.1 The Tribe's suit falls squarely within the Young doctrine, and the District Court had an obligation to hear it.
The response of today's Court, however, is to deny that obligation. The principal opinion would redefine the doctrine, from a rule recognizing federal jurisdiction to enjoin state officers from violating federal law to a principle of equitable discretion as much at odds with Young's result as with the foundational doctrine on which Young rests. Justice O’Connor charts a more limited course that wisely rejects the lead opinion's call for federal jurisdiction contingent on case-by-case balancing, but sets forth a rule denying jurisdiction here on Eleventh Amendment grounds because the
1 The Tribe originally sought to quiet its claim of title as against the State itself, but the claim was dismissed as barred by the Eleventh Amendment, see 42 F. 3d 1244, 1254 (CA9 1994), and we denied certiorari to review the dismissal. See 517 U. S. 1133 (1996).
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