High Court Curbs Federal Lawsuits Against the States

In a potentially far-reaching opinion, the Supreme Court declared Wednesday that states are separate and sovereign governments and generally cannot be sued for failing to comply with federal laws.

The 5-4 ruling marks the third time in five years that the conservative high court has broadly strengthened the powers of the states at the expense of the federal government.

Although the latest ruling arose in a case involving gambling on Indian reservations, its impact will be felt most directly in areas as diverse as the environment and copyright protection, legal experts said.

In a bold endorsement of states’ rights, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the Constitution gives states a “sovereign immunity” from lawsuits filed in federal court, except those involving civil rights.

“This is one of the most significant decisions ever on federalism,” said California Asst. Atty. Gen. Thomas Gede, who had filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the state and 30 others. “It reasserts the important role for the sovereign states.”

But a Justice Department attorney who read the opinion said it was unclear whether it would have a broad, practical impact. Only a few laws encourage citizen suits against the states. It is also possible that Congress could rewrite these laws to direct the suits against state officials, rather than against the state itself.

Most federal laws are enforced either through direct regulation by federal agencies or through grants to the states. Neither of those enforcement mechanisms are affected by the ruling, he noted.

Only a few laws, such as the Superfund Act, are enforced largely with private lawsuits in federal court, but states are rarely the target of those lawsuits.

In dissenting opinions that ran to 118 pages, the four liberal-leaning justices condemned Rehnquist’s opinion as “shocking . . . fundamentally mistaken . . . [and] simply irresponsible.”

Typically, Congress gets the states to follow its lead by offering them money. States that take federal funds for highway construction, public education or health care for the poor, for example, must comply with federal regulations.

But in the last two decades, Congress often has worked its will by authorizing citizen lawsuits in federal court--for example, against those who fail to clean up hazardous wastes or who copy a protected work. Sometimes states are hauled into court to answer these suits.

Under Wednesday’s ruling, it appears that a state that fails to clean up a waste dump or a state university that illegally copies a protected work cannot be sued in federal court.

Rehnquist relied on the rather obscure 11th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1795 to prevent citizens from suing states in federal court to collect unpaid debts from the Revolutionary War.

In the last decade, this previously ignored amendment has become a source of bitter division within the high court.

In 1989, Justice William J. Brennan, the court’s then aging liberal leader, wrote an opinion for a 5-4 majority that allowed Pennsylvania to be sued under federal law for damages by the Union Gas Co. The company, which can go to court as a private citizen, wanted the state to pay its share of the cleanup cost for a hazardous waste site. The federal Superfund Act specifically allowed such suits.

However, Brennan retired a year later, and on Wednesday, the five-member majority overruled that 1989 decision and laid down a new rule.

“Even when the Constitution vests in Congress complete law-making authority over a particular area, the 11th Amendment prevents congressional authorization of suits by private parties against unconsenting states,” Rehnquist wrote. He was joined by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Rehnquist noted that civil rights claims against states are not affected by this ruling. After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution and it specifically authorized civil rights lawsuits against states in federal court.

In a rare occurrence, Justice David H. Souter read parts of his dissent from the bench. In written form, it ran to 92 pages.

“The Court today for the first time since the founding of the Republic holds that Congress has no authority to subject a state to the jurisdiction of a federal court at the behest of an individual asserting a federal right,” Souter said.

He was joined in dissent by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

In his opinion, Rehnquist scorned Souter’s broad assertion of national sovereignty over the states as “a theory cobbled together from law review articles.”

In response, Stevens closed his separate dissent by predicting “the better reasoning in Justice Souter’s far wiser and far more scholarly opinion will surely be the law one day.”

Not surprisingly, state officials said they were delighted with the court’s opinion.

“This is a case about the basic structure of government,” said Washington attorney Richard G. Taranto, who filed a brief on behalf of the National Governors’ Assn. “There are five justices who care deeply about the states having a strong independent role.”

The justices took on the case (Seminole Tribe vs. Florida, 94-12) because of a recurring dispute over gambling on Indian reservations.

Wednesday’s ruling does not resolve that legal muddle. While the court agreed that the states cannot be hauled into federal court to negotiate with the tribes over gambling, it did not make clear who has legal authority to regulate tribal gaming.

In California, tribes are operating casinos in defiance of the state, and federal officials have refused so far to intervene.

Instead, the high court used the case to make a statement about a state’s authority.

Souter stressed that the battle over federal-versus-state power is as old as the nation itself. In the 1780s, the Federalists favored a strong national government with the power to set uniform laws. Their opponents, the “anti-Federalists,” feared an all-powerful central government and insisted that the states retain their sovereign powers.

The Constitution of 1787 did not settle the matter. It gave Congress specific powers, such as the authority “to regulate commerce among the several states [and] to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.”

On the other hand, the 10th Amendment says “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution . . . are reserved to the states.”

Since joining the Supreme Court 24 years ago, Rehnquist has been its foremost proponent of the view that the states are separate independent governments, “not mere subdivisions” of the federal government. In his view, freedom and diversity flourish best with independent and competing units of governments, rather than a single, all-powerful national government.

The once-dominant liberal justices called Rehnquist’s view archaic. They argued that it was essential for a modern nation to be able to enforce its laws concerning pollution, crime or copyrights, regardless of the wishes of dissenting states.

Since the conservative Thomas replaced retiring liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall five years ago, Rehnquist usually has had a majority to follow his lead on the issue.

Last year, the Rehnquist majority struck down a federal law making it a crime to have a gun near a school, ruling for the first time in 61 years that Congress lacked the power to enact such a regulatory measure.

However, the chief justice also suffered a sharp defeat last year on the issue of term limits. While Rehnquist and three fellow conservatives voted to uphold state laws limiting terms for members of Congress, Kennedy voted with the majority to strike down these laws. A uniform, national policy must govern national lawmakers, Kennedy said.