Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 75.0

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

33 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

now  weak.”  Kagama,  118  U. S.,  at  384–385.    Of  course, 
nothing  of  the  sort  follows  from  “a  reasoned  analysis  de-
rived from the text [or] history . . . of the United States Con-
stitution.”  Clinton  2002,  at  163.  Instead,  the  plenary-
power  idea  “constituted  an  unprincipled  assertion  of  raw
federal  authority.”  Ibid.  It  rested  on  nothing  more  than
judicial claims about putative constitutional purposes that
aligned with contemporary policy preferences. 

Nor was anachronistic language the only consequence of 
this  Court’s  abandonment  of  the  Constitution’s  original 
meaning.  During what has been called the “high plenary 
power era of U. S. Indian law,” this Court sometimes took 
the  word  “plenary”  pretty  literally.    S.  Cleveland,  Powers 
Inherent in Sovereignty:  Indians, Aliens, Territories, and 
the  Nineteenth  Century  Origins  of  Plenary  Power  Over 
Foreign Affairs, 81 Texas L. Rev. 1, 62 (2002) (Cleveland). 
It assumed that Congress possesses a “virtually unlimited 
authority to regulate [T]ribes” in every respect.  M. Steele, 
Plenary Power, Political Questions, and Sovereignty in In-
dian Affairs, 63 UCLA L. Rev. 666, 670 (2016); see Cleve-
land  62–74.  Perhaps  most  notably,  the  Court  even  sug-
gested that Congress’s “plenary authority” might allow 
it to “limit, modify, or eliminate the powers of local self-
government which the [T]ribes otherwise possess.”  Santa 
Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 56–57 (1978).  It is 
an  “inconceivable”  suggestion  for  anyone  who  takes  the
Constitution’s  original  meaning  seriously.  Worcester,  6 
Pet., at 554. 

The Court’s atextual and ahistorical plenary-power move
did not just serve to expand the scope of federal power over 
the Tribes.  It also had predictable downstream effects on 
the relationship between States and Tribes.  As Congress
assumed  new  power  to  intrude  on  tribal  sovereignty,  the 
Constitution’s  “concomitant  jurisdictional  limit  on  the
reach of state law” began to wane.  McClanahan, 411 U. S., 
at 171.  It is not hard to draw a through-line between these