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Page Number: 50.0

28 

TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Most troubling, however, is the clear parallel between the
Court’s analysis today and the discredited approach to sov-
ereign immunity that  we rejected in Seminole Tribe.  For 
example, in Parden v. Terminal R. Co. of Ala. Docks Dept., 
377 U. S. 184 (1964), the Court relied on Gibbons’ “complete
in itself ” language to hold that “the States surrendered a
portion  of  their  sovereignty  when  they  granted  Congress 
the power to regulate commerce.”  Id., at 191; see also id., 
at 192.  Parden reasoned, not unlike the Court today, that
“[t]he  sovereign  power  of  the  states  is  necessarily  dimin-
ished to the extent of the grants of power to the federal gov-
ernment in the Constitution,” and that granting Congress
“plenary power to regulate commerce” amounts to a surren-
der  of  immunity.  Id.,  at  191  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).
  Similarly, in Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1 
(1989), the plurality emphasized how “[i]t would be difficult
to overstate the breadth and depth of the commerce power,” 
id.,  at  20,  and  how  the  “[t]he  Commerce  Clause  with  one
hand gives power to Congress while, with the other, it takes
power away from the States,” id., at 16.  In light of this dual
grant of federal authority and divestment of state author-
ity, the plurality thought Congress’ commerce power “would 
be incomplete without the authority to render States liable 
in damages.”  Id., at 19 (emphasis added).  To complete that
congressional power, the plurality reasoned that “to the ex-
tent that the States gave Congress the authority to regulate
commerce,  they  also  relinquished  their  immunity  where 
Congress found it necessary, in exercising this authority, to 

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that Congress’ power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce is also
“exclusive.”  E.g., Cloverleaf Butter Co. v. Patterson, 315 U. S. 148, 154– 
155 (1942); Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ill. v. United States, 289 U. S. 
48, 56–57 (1933).  So again, the Court cannot explain how its interpreta-
tion  of  Hamilton  or  its  understanding  of  the  war  powers  coheres  with 
Seminole  Tribe  and  does  not  sweep  in  other  Article  I  powers  like  the 
Commerce Clause.