Cite as: 523 U. S. 44 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
in the Parliamentary struggles of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" and was "taken as a matter of course by those who severed the Colonies from the Crown and founded our Nation." Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 372 (1951). The Federal Constitution, the Constitutions of many of the newly independent States, and the common law thus protected legislators from liability for their legislative activities. See U. S. Const., Art. I, § 6; Tenney, supra, at 372-375.
Recognizing this venerable tradition, we have held that state and regional legislators are entitled to absolute immunity from liability under § 1983 for their legislative activities. See Tenney, supra (state legislators); Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391 (1979) (regional legislators); 3 see also Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, 202-204 (1881) (interpreting the federal Speech and Debate Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 6, to provide similar immunity to Members of Congress). We explained that legislators were entitled to absolute immunity from suit at common law and that Congress did not intend the general language of § 1983 to "impinge on a tradition so well grounded in history and reason." Tenney, supra, at 376. Because the common law accorded local legislators the same absolute immunity it accorded legislators at other levels of government, and because the rationales for such immunity are fully applicable to local legislators, we now hold that local legislators are likewise absolutely immune from suit under § 1983 for their legislative activities.
The common law at the time § 1983 was enacted deemed local legislators to be absolutely immune from suit for their legislative activities. New York's highest court, for example, held that municipal aldermen were immune from suit for
3 The "regional" legislature in Lake Country Estates was the governing body of an agency created by a compact between two States to coordinate and regulate development in a region encompassing portions of both States. Lake Country Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S., at 394.
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