Cite as: 522 U. S. 156 (1997)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens joins, dissenting.
This now-federal case originated as an appeal in state court from a municipal agency's denials of demolition permits. The review that state law provides is classically appellate in character—on the agency's record, not de novo. Nevertheless, the Court decides today that this standard brand of appellate review can be shifted from the appropriate state tribunal to a federal court of first instance at the option of either party—plaintiff originally or defendant by removal. The Court approves this enlargement of district court authority explicitly in federal-question cases, and by inescapable implication in diversity cases, satisfied that "neither the jurisdictional statutes nor our prior decisions suggest that federal jurisdiction is lacking." Ante, at 163.
The Court's authorization of cross-system appeals qualifies as a watershed decision. After today, litigants asserting federal-question or diversity jurisdiction may routinely lodge in federal courts direct appeals from the actions of all manner of local (county and municipal) agencies, boards, and commissions. Exercising this cross-system appellate authority, federal courts may now directly superintend local agencies by affirming, reversing, or modifying their administrative rulings.
The Court relies on the statutory words found in both 28 U. S. C. §§ 1331 and 1332: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions . . . ." Then, as its linchpin, the Court emphasizes the 1990 codification and expansion, in § 1367, of what previously had been known as "ancillary jurisdiction" and "pendent jurisdiction." Specifically, the Court stresses the broad authorization in § 1367(a) for district court exercise of "supplemental jurisdiction" over claims "so related" to a "civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction" as to "form part of the same [Article III] case or controversy." See ante, at 164-
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