968
Stevens, J., dissenting
The language drawn from the Supremacy Clause upon which the majority relies ("the Judges in every State shall be bound [by federal law], any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding"), expressly embraces that narrower conflict of laws principle. Art. VI, cl. 2. But the Supremacy Clause means far more. As Testa held, because the "Laws of the United States . . . [are] the supreme Law of the Land," state courts of appropriate jurisdiction must hear federal claims whenever a federal statute, such as the Emergency Price Control Act, requires them to do so. Art. VI, cl. 2.
Hence, the Court's textual argument is quite misguided. The majority focuses on the Clause's specific attention to the point that "Judges in every State shall be bound." Ibid. That language commands state judges to "apply federal law" in cases that they entertain, but it is not the source of their duty to accept jurisdiction of federal claims that they would prefer to ignore. Our opinions in Testa, and earlier the Second Employers' Liability Cases, rested generally on the language of the Supremacy Clause, without any specific focus on the reference to judges.31
31 As the discussion above suggests, the Clause's mention of judges was almost certainly meant as nothing more than a choice-of-law rule, informing the state courts that they were to apply federal law in the event of a conflict with state authority. The majority's quotation of this language, ante, at 928-929, is quite misleading because it omits a crucial phrase that follows the mention of state judges. In its entirety, the Supremacy Clause reads: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding." Art. VI, cl. 2 (emphasis added). The omitted language, in my view, makes clear that the specific reference to judges was designed to do nothing more than state a choice-of-law principle. The fact that our earliest opinions in this area, see Testa; Second Employers' Liability Cases, written at a time when the question was far more hotly contested
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