650
Souter, J., concurring
While the State of Maryland is the named defendant, it is only a nominal one. Verizon Maryland Inc., the private party "suing" it, does not seek money damages, or the sort of declaratory or injunctive relief that could be had against a private litigant.3 Nor does Verizon seek an order enjoining the State from enforcing purely state-law rate orders of dubious constitutionality, the relief requested in Ex parte Young itself, id., at 129-131. Instead, Verizon claims that the Maryland Public Service Commission has wrongly decided a question of federal law 4 under a decisional power conferred by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act), a power that no person may wield. Verizon accordingly seeks not a simple order of relief running against the state commission, but a different adjudication of a federal question
3 Cf. e. g., Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U. S. 356, 360 (2001) (money damages from the State as employer under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 66 (2000) (money damages from the State as employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967); Alden v. Maine, supra, at 712 (money damages from the State as employer under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in state court); Florida Pre-paid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S. 627, 633 (1999) (money damages and injunctive and declaratory relief against a State for patent infringement); College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 671 (1999) (same for trademark violations); Seminole Tribe, supra, at 47 (suit to compel State to negotiate in good faith); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890) (money damages for failure to honor state securities). In Seminole Tribe, a majority of this Court observed "that the relief sought by a plaintiff suing a State is irrelevant to the question whether the suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment," 517 U. S., at 58, but this was said in the context of a suit for injunctive relief (to enforce a duty to negotiate) as opposed to money damages. My point is that conventional relief of both sorts (and declaratory relief) is different in kind from the judicial review of agency action sought in these cases.
4 Whether the interpretation of a reciprocal-compensation provision in a privately negotiated interconnection agreement presents a federal issue is a different question which neither the Court nor I address at the present.
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