Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

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

27 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

travel between States or outside a tribe, are subject to reg-
ulation by a sovereign other than the Federal Government 
(a State or tribe).”  Ante, at 13. 

But the Court’s proposed distinction makes no sense.  For 
one, it conflicts with the Court’s longstanding characteriza-
tion of Congress’ commerce power as plenary.  See, e.g., Ar-
mour & Co. v. Virginia, 246 U. S. 1, 6 (1918).  As long as the
goods mentioned by the Court are in fact part of “interstate
commerce,” then Congress has authority to regulate their
travel at all times.  For another, it does nothing to distin-
guish  Congress’  commerce  power  from  its  power  to  raise 
and maintain a military.  Following the Court’s logic, one
could  just  as  easily  say  that  Congress’  power  under  the 
Army  and  Navy  Clauses  is  “less  than  complete”  because 
“federal  regulation  of  soldiers  involves  men  and  women 
who, before they join the military, are subject to regulation 
by  a  sovereign  other  than  the  Federal  Government.”  De-
spite the Court’s efforts, its “completeness” analysis simply 
fails to distinguish the Army and Navy Clauses from other 
Article  I  powers  delegated  to  Congress  in  the  plan  of  the
Convention.12 

—————— 

12 The Court also makes what appears to be an alternative argument. 
Invoking  Hamilton’s  discussion  of  state  sovereignty  in  The  Federalist, 
the Court says that States surrendered their sovereign immunity where 
the Constitution “ ‘granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar
authority in the States would be absolutely and totally contradictory and 
repugnant.’ ”  Ante,  at  4–5  (quoting  The  Federalist  No.  32,  p.  200  (J. 
Cooke ed. 1961)).  The Court then remarks, seemingly in dicta, that “an 
assertion  of  state  sovereignty  to  frustrate  federal  prerogatives  to  raise
and maintain military forces would be strongly ‘contradictory and repug-
nant’  to  the  constitutional  order.”  Ante, at  13  (quoting  The  Federalist 
No. 32, at 200).  But that reasoning is hardly different from the argument
made by Justice Souter when he dissented in Seminole Tribe with respect 
to the Indian Commerce Clause and Congress’ exclusive authority in that 
area.  See 517 U. S., at 148 (“[S]ince the States have no sovereignty in 
the regulation of commerce with the tribes, on Hamilton’s view there is 
no  source  of  sovereign  immunity  to  assert  in  a  suit  based  on  congres-
sional regulation of that commerce”).  Similarly, the Court has often held