Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-806_2dp3.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

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

9 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

compel the States to enact or administer a federal regula-
tory program.”  Id., at 188.6 

Yet that is precisely what many spending conditions re-
quire the State to do.  Spending conditions like FNHRA’s
are nothing more than commands to States, qua States, to 
administer federal benefits programs on terms dictated by
Congress.  Such conditions cannot be treated as having the 
force  of  federal  law  imposing  direct  obligations  on  the 
States  and  securing  correlative  rights  of  private  parties
without violating the anticommandeering doctrine.

It is no answer that the States consent to direct regula-
tion  by  agreeing  to  the  spending  conditions  in  return  for 
federal  dollars.  As  the  Court  held  in  New  York,  “[w]here
Congress exceeds its authority relative to the States, . . . the 
departure from the constitutional plan cannot be ratified by 
the ‘consent’ of state officials.”  Id., at 182.  Because the peo-
ple have surrendered only limited and enumerated powers
to the Federal Government, the States and Congress cannot 
jointly circumvent the ratification and amendment process 
by agreeing “to the enlargement of the powers of Congress 
beyond those enumerated in the Constitution.”  Ibid.  The 
Federal Government cannot buy (or rent) the States’ power 
to implement a federal program and then regard the condi-
tions that the States are implementing themselves as hav-
ing the force of federal law. 

B 
Of course, it is ultimately the States’ consent that gives
effect to conditions in spending legislation, but it does so in
an  entirely  different  manner  from  an  illicit  expansion  of 

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6 The anticommandeering doctrine protects “political subdivisions” of 
States  against  federal  cooptation,  as  well  as  the  States  themselves. 
Printz  v.  United  States,  521  U. S.  898,  935  (1997);  see  also id.,  at  931, 
n. 15 (“[T]he distinction in our Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence be-
tween States and municipalities is of no relevance here”).