Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

23 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

State can never be a condition precedent to its enjoyment.” 
Ibid. 

Before  PennEast,  the  phrase  “complete  in  itself ”  never
appeared  in  our  modern  state  sovereign  immunity  prece-
dents.  PennEast itself invoked the concept for one purpose:
to reject the contention that one could “[s]eparat[e] the em-
inent  domain  power  from  the  power  to  condemn”—i.e.,  to 
disaggregate  those  “inextricably  intertwined”  powers—
when determining whether the history of federal eminent 
domain  supported  finding  a  waiver  of  state  sovereign  im-
munity.  594  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  17).    According  to 
PennEast, to deprive the Federal Government of a power to
condemn  property  in  judicial  proceedings  brought  by  pri-
vate delegatees would be tantamount to depriving the Gov-
ernment  of  part  of  the  eminent  domain  power  itself,  con-
trary to Kohl’s characterization of that power as “complete 
in itself.”  594 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–18). 

The Court today errs by attributing to Kohl an outsized 
role in PennEast’s sovereign immunity analysis.  The Court 
in PennEast never stated that “completeness in itself ” rep-
resented  the  governing  test  for  plan-of-the-Convention
waiver.  Likewise, PennEast made no effort to explain how 
the “complete in itself ” inquiry would work beyond the con-
text of eminent domain.  And because PennEast did not in-
voke Kohl to break new doctrinal ground, the Court made 
no attempt to reconcile the “complete in itself ” inquiry with
this  Court’s  longstanding  sovereign  immunity  precedents
(e.g.,  Alden,  Seminole  Tribe,  Federal  Maritime  Comm’n, 
Hans, etc.).  Again, if PennEast had made “completeness in 
itself ” the applicable test, surely the Court would have dis-
cussed the concept more thoroughly.

The  Court  compounds  its  overreading  of  PennEast’s 
“complete  in  itself ”  language  by  unjustifiably  dismissing 
PennEast’s  “inextricably  intertwined”  rationale  as  a  mere 
“technical aspect” of the decision.  Ante, at 15.  PennEast is 
best  read  to  stand  for  the  proposition  that,  because  every