786
Breyer, J., dissenting
tives the Court's decision claims to serve. Cf. Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898, 959 (1997) (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("In the name of State's rights, the majority would have the Federal Government create vast national bureaucracies to implement its policies"); id., at 976-978 (Breyer, J., dissenting).
These consequences are not purely theoretical. The Court's decision may undermine enforcement against state employers of many laws designed to protect worker health and safety. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 7622 (1994 ed.) (Clean Air Act); 33 U. S. C. § 1367 (Clean Water Act); 15 U. S. C. § 2622 (Toxic Substances Control Act); 42 U. S. C. § 6971 (1994 ed.) (Solid Waste Disposal Act); see also Rhode Island Dept. of Environmental Management v. United States, 286 F. 3d 27, 36-40 (CA1 2002). And it may inhibit the development of federal fair, rapid, and efficient informal nonjudicial responses to complaints, for example, of improper medical care (involving state hospitals). Cf. generally Macchiaroli, Medical Malpractice Screening Panels: Proposed Model Legislation to Cure Judicial Ills, 58 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 181 (1990).
* * *
The Court's decision threatens to deny the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government the structural flexibility that the Constitution permits and which modern government demands. The Court derives from the abstract notion of state "dignity" a structural principle that limits the powers of both Congress and the President. Its reasoning rests almost exclusively upon the use of a formal analogy, which, as I have said, jumps ordinary separation-of-powers bounds. It places "great significance" upon the 18th-century absence of 20th-century administrative proceedings. See ante, at 755. And its conclusion draws little support from considerations of constitutional purpose or related consequence. In its readiness to rest a structural limitation on so little evidence and in its willingness to interpret that limitation so
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