Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

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TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

omitted);  Brief  for  Petitioner  26.  But  this  argument  con-
flates the preservation of state sovereign immunity with a
license to interfere with federal warmaking.  As we already
cautioned in Alden, “The constitutional privilege of a State
to assert its sovereign immunity in its own courts does not
confer upon the State a concomitant right to disregard the
Constitution or valid federal law.”  527 U. S., at 754–755. 

For example, the Court notes that early Congresses “es-
tablished military bonuses to reward service, even requir-
ing Virginia to give land to some Revolutionary War offic-
ers.”  Ante, at 9 (citing Act of Aug. 10, 1790, ch. 40, 1 Stat. 
182).8  It asks, incredulously, “Could Virginia have refused 
to go along?”  Ante, at 9.  But that question is a non sequitur. 
No one disputes “the supremacy of federal power in the area
of military affairs.”  Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 
U. S.  334,  351  (1990).   Instead,  all  agree  that  the  United 
States could lawfully sue Virginia in federal court to secure 
an  injunction  requiring  it  to  comply  with  federal  law.  In 
fact,  USERRA  already  authorizes  suits  by  the  United
States  to  enforce  USERRA’s  requirements.  §4323(a)(1). 

—————— 

8 The Court’s characterization of the Act of Aug. 10, 1790, as “requiring
Virginia to give land to some Revolutionary War officers” “at the expense
of state sovereignty,” ante, at 9, is deeply misleading.  Virginia had ceded
the  relevant  lands  to  the  United  States  in  1784,  but  conditionally  re-
served some of it for the State’s Revolutionary War soldiers.  See Wallace 
v.  Parker,  6  Pet.  680,  687  (1832)  (Marshall,  C. J.,  for  the  Court).    The 
1790 Act opened up the ceded land to those soldiers, and provided that 
the  Secretary  of  War  would  send  the  Virginia  Governor  the  names  of 
those soldiers who were entitled to the land under Virginia law.  See §2, 
1 Stat. 183.  The 1790 Act also provided that the land would be surveyed, 
that the Executive Branch would draw up land patents for eligible sol-
diers, and that the Secretary of State would transmit  those patents  to 
the  Virginia  Governor  who  would,  in  turn,  deliver  the  patents  to  the 
grantees.  See §§4–6, id., at 183–184.  At most, the 1790 Act required the 
Virginia Governor only to deliver advantageous federal land patents to 
the State’s own soldiers.  How that statute was enacted “at the expense 
of state sovereignty,” ante, at 9, is beyond me.