Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

of its lawmaking power by prohibiting it from modifying or 
repealing  its  laws  prohibiting  sports  gambling.  See  Na-
tional  Collegiate  Athletic  Assn.  v.  Christie,  926 
F. Supp. 2d,  at  561–562.  The  plaintiffs  countered  that
PASPA  is  critically  different  from  the  commandeering
cases because it does not command the States to take any 
affirmative  act.  Id.,  at  562.   Without  an  affirmative  fed­
eral command to do something, the plaintiffs insisted, there
can be no claim of commandeering.  Ibid. 

The  District  Court  found  no  anticommandeering  viola­
tion,  id.,  at  569–573,  and  a  divided  panel  of  the  Third 
Circuit  affirmed,  National  Collegiate  Athletic  Assn.  v. 
Christie,  730  F. 3d  208  (2013)  (Christie  I ).    The  panel 
thought  it  significant  that  PASPA  does  not  impose  any 
affirmative  command.  Id.,  at  231.    In  the  words  of  the 
panel, “PASPA does not require or coerce the states to lift 
a finger.”  Ibid. (emphasis deleted).  The panel recognized
that  an  affirmative  command  (for  example,  “Do  not  re­
peal”)  can  often  be  phrased  as  a  prohibition  (“Repeal  is
prohibited”),  but  the  panel  did  not  interpret  PASPA  as
prohibiting  the  repeal  of  laws  outlawing  sports  gambling. 
Id.,  at  232.  A  repeal,  it  thought,  would  not  amount  to
“authoriz[ation]”  and  thus  would  fall  outside  the  scope  of
§3702(1).  “[T]he  lack  of  an  affirmative  prohibition  of  an
activity,” the panel wrote, “does not mean it is affirmatively 
authorized  by  law.    The  right  to  do  that  which  is  not 
prohibited derives not from the authority of  the state but 
from  the  inherent  rights  of  the  people.”  Id.,  at  232  (em­
phasis deleted). 

New Jersey filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, rais­
ing  the  anticommandeering  issue.    Opposing  certiorari, 
the  United  States  told  this  Court  that  PASPA  does  not 
require New Jersey “to leave in place the state-law prohi­
bitions  against  sports  gambling  that  it  had  chosen  to
adopt prior to PASPA’s enactment.  To the contrary, New 
Jersey  is  free  to  repeal  those  prohibitions  in  whole  or  in