Cite as: 527 U. S. 706 (1999)
Souter, J., dissenting
Nor can it be argued that because the State of Maine creates its own court system, it has authority to decide what sorts of claims may be entertained there, and thus in effect to control the right of action in this case. Maine has created state courts of general jurisdiction; once it has done so, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, Art. VI, cl. 2, which requires state courts to enforce federal law and state-court judges to be bound by it, requires the Maine courts to entertain this federal cause of action. Maine has advanced no " 'valid excuse,' " Howlett v. Rose, 496 U. S. 356, 369 (1990) (quoting Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377, 387-388 (1929)), for its courts' refusal to hear federal-law claims in which Maine is a defendant, and sovereign immunity cannot be that excuse, simply because the State is not sovereign with respect to the subject of the claim against it. The Court's insistence that the federal structure bars Congress from making States susceptible to suit in their own courts is, then, plain mistake.34
B
It is symptomatic of the weakness of the structural notion proffered by the Court that it seeks to buttress the argument by relying on " 'the dignity and respect afforded a State,
34 Perhaps as a corollary to its view of sovereign immunity as to some degree indefeasible because "fundamental," the Court frets that the "power to press a State's own courts into federal service to coerce the other branches of the State . . . is the power first to turn the State against itself and ultimately to commandeer the entire political machinery of the State against its will and at the behest of individuals." Ante, at 749. But this is to forget that the doctrine of separation of powers prevails in our Republic. When the state judiciary enforces federal law against state officials, as the Supremacy Clause requires it to do, it is not turning against the State's executive any more than we turn against the Federal Executive when we apply federal law to the United States: it is simply upholding the rule of law. There is no "commandeering" of the State's resources where the State is asked to do no more than enforce federal law.
801
Page: Index Previous 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007