Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf
Page Number: 44

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2021) 

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part 
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

simple: If, as our precedents make clear (and as the ques-
tion presented presumes), S. B. 8 is unconstitutional, con-
trary state rules of civil procedure must give way.  See U. S. 
Const.,  Art. VI,  cl. 2  (“This  Constitution,  and  the  Laws  of 
the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof 
. . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land”). 
  In the midst of its handwringing over remedy, the Court 
also  complains  that  the  petitioners  offer  no  “meaningful 
limiting principles for their theory.”  Ante, at 6.  That is in-
correct.  The petitioners explain: “Where, as here, a State 
law  (1)  deliberately  seeks  to  evade  federal  judicial  review 
by outsourcing enforcement of the law to private individu-
als without any personal stake, while forbidding state exec-
utive officials from direct enforcement; and (2) creates spe-
cial  rules 
for  state-court  adjudication  to  maximize 
harassment  and  make  timely  and  effective  protection  of 
constitutional  rights  impossible,  federal  relief  against 
clerks is warranted.”  Reply Brief for Petitioners 6.  The pe-
titioners  do  not  argue  that  pre-enforcement  relief  against 
state-court  clerks  should  be  available  absent  those  two 
unique circumstances, and indeed, those circumstances are 
why  the  petitioners  are  threatened  with  a  multiplicity  of 
suits  and  face  a  constitutionally  intolerable  choice  under 
Young.4 

—————— 

4 The Court also holds that the Texas attorney general is not a proper 
defendant.  For the reasons explained by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, ante, at 2–
3, this conclusion fails even under the Court’s own logic. 

The  Court  further  observes  that  “no  court  may  ‘lawfully  enjoin  the 
world at large.’ ”  Ante, at 10–11 (quoting Alemite Mfg. Corp. v. Staff, 42 
F. 2d 832 (CA2 1930)).  But the petitioners do not seek such relief.  It is 
Texas that has taken the unprecedented step of delegating its enforce-
ment authority to the world at large without requiring any pre-existing 
stake.  Under the Court’s precedents, private actors who take up a State’s 
mantle “exercise . . . a right or privilege having its source in state author-
ity” and may “be described in all fairness as . . . state actor[s].”  Edmon-
son v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 620 (1991).  This Court has 
not held that state actors who have actual notice of an injunction may