624
Opinion of the Court
federal courts and the States themselves. It says that removal is a form of voluntary invocation of a federal court's jurisdiction sufficient to waive the State's otherwise valid objection to litigation of a matter (here of state law) in a federal forum. As Justice Kennedy has pointed out, once "the States know or have reason to expect that removal will constitute a waiver, then it is easy enough to presume that an attorney authorized to represent the State can bind it to the jurisdiction of the federal court (for Eleventh Amendment purposes) by the consent to removal." See Schacht, supra, at 397 (concurring opinion).
We conclude that the State's action joining the removing of this case to federal court waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity—though, as we have said, the District Court may well find that this case, now raising only state-law issues, should nonetheless be remanded to the state courts for determination. 28 U. S. C. § 1367(c)(3).
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
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