Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-806_2dp3.pdf
Page Number: 57.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

25 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

and  the  provision  of  maternity  benefits  depended  on  “the 
power of the cooperating states to compel birth registration,
the licensing of mid-wives, etc.”  Ibid.  Thus, more than 100 
years after Monroe’s Views, it was still well understood that 
the Federal Government’s spending power needed to work 
with “the wider coercive powers of the states” to accomplish 
its ends.  Ibid.  And, a State’s acceptance of federal funds in
return  for  exercising  its  own  powers  did  not  expand  the
Federal Government’s legislative powers. 

In sum, from the framing of the Constitution to well into
the 20th century, it was virtually undisputed that Congress’ 
spending power was nothing more than a power to spend.
It included no regulatory authority to bind parties, to secure 
rights or impose duties with the force of federal law, and no
authority  to  directly  regulate  the  States  even  with  their 
consent. 

E 
When cases concerning expansive federal spending pro-
grams  first  began  to  reach  this  Court,  they  vividly  illus-
trated  both  the  enduring  understanding  of  the  spending 
power as a nonregulatory power and the contractual under-
standing of spending conditions.  The Federal Government 
defended major spending programs on the basis of that un-
derstanding, and the programs survived this Court’s review
only because of those traditional premises.

In  Massachusetts  v.  Mellon,  262  U. S.  447  (1923),  the
Court rejected as nonjusticiable Massachusetts’ claim that
the Maternity Act of 1921 was “an attempt to legislate out-
side  the  powers  granted  to  Congress  by  the  Constitution
and within the field of local powers exclusively reserved to
the  States.”  Id.,  at  482.  The  Court  first  stated  that  it 
“[p]robably . . . would be sufficient to point out that the pow-
ers of the State are not invaded, since the statute imposes 
no obligation but simply extends an option which the State 
is free to accept or reject.”  Id., at 480.  In other words, the