Cite as: 523 U. S. 740 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
therefore found Chapter 154 inapplicable. In affirming the grant of injunctive relief, the Court of Appeals rejected petitioners' contention that enjoining their advocacy of a particular legal position violates the First Amendment. It thought the injunction did not interfere with the state officials' rights since they were free to voice their opinion that the decision was wrong—only not in court in order to invoke the benefits of Chapter 154. Id., at 1207-1209.
Petitioners sought review in this Court. We granted certiorari on both the Eleventh Amendment and the First Amendment issues, 522 U. S. 1011 (1997), but in keeping with our precedents, have decided that we must first address whether this action for a declaratory judgment is the sort of "Article III" "case or controversy" to which federal courts are limited. See, e. g., FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 230-231 (1990).2
Before the enactment of the federal Declaratory Judgment Act, this Court expressed the view that a "declaratory judgment" was not within that jurisdiction. Willing v. Chicago Auditorium Assn., 277 U. S. 274, 289 (1928). But in Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249 (1933), the Court held that it did have jurisdiction to review a declaratory judgment granted by a state court. And in Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227 (1937), we decided that the federal Declaratory Judgment Act validly conferred jurisdiction on federal courts to issue declaratory judgments in appropriate cases.
That Act provides that "[i]n a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction, . . . any court of the United States . . . may declare the rights and other legal relations of any inter-2 While the Eleventh Amendment is jurisdictional in the sense that it is a limitation on the federal court's judicial power, and therefore can be raised at any stage of the proceedings, we have recognized that it is not coextensive with the limitations on judicial power in Article III. See Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U. S. 261, 267 (1997); Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 515, n. 19 (1982).
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