Cite as: 535 U. S. 743 (2002)
Breyer, J., dissenting
whether to do so, the Federal Government will exercise appropriate political responsibility. Cf. ibid.
Viewed from a practical perspective, the Court's "compulsion" claim proves far too much. Certainly, a private citizen's decision to file a complaint with the Commission can produce practical pressures upon the State to respond and eventually to comply with a Commission decision. By appearing before the Commission, the State will be able to obtain full judicial review of an adverse agency decision in a court of appeals (where it will face in opposition the Commission itself, not the private party). By appearing, the State will avoid any potential Commission-assessed monetary penalty. And by complying, it will avoid the adverse political, practical, and symbolic implications of being labeled a federal "lawbreaker."
Practical pressures such as these, however, cannot sufficiently "affront" a State's "dignity" as to warrant constitutional "sovereign immunity" protections, for it is easy to imagine comparable instances of clearly lawful private citizen complaints to Government that place a State under far greater practical pressures to comply. No one doubts, for example, that a private citizen can complain to Congress, which may threaten (should the State fail to respond) to enact a new law that the State opposes. Nor does anyone deny that a private citizen, in complaining to a federal agency, may seek a rulemaking proceeding, which may lead the agency (should the State fail to respond) to enact a new agency rule that the State opposes. A private citizen may ask an agency formally to declare that a State is not in compliance with a statute or federal rule, even though from that formal declaration may flow a host of legal consequences adverse to a State's interests. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 300g-3 (Environmental Protection Agency may declare that a State is in noncompliance with federal water quality regulations). And one can easily imagine a legal scheme in which a private individual files a complaint like the one before us, but asks
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