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TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

Syllabus 

immunity  as  to  the  federal  eminent  domain  power  pursuant  to  the
“plan of the Convention.”  The Court then granted Torres’ petition for 
certiorari  to  determine  whether,  in  light  of  that  intervening  ruling, 
USERRA’s damages remedy against state employers is constitutional. 

Held: By ratifying the Constitution, the States agreed their sovereignty 
would  yield  to  the  national  power  to  raise  and  support  the  Armed 
Forces.  Congress may exercise this power to authorize private dam-
ages suits against nonconsenting States, as in USERRA.  Pp. 3–16.

(a) While courts generally may not hear private suits against non-
consenting States, see Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 
775, 779, the States remain subject to suit in certain circumstances. 
States may consent to suit, see Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U. S. 277, 284; 
Congress  may  abrogate  States’  immunity  under  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment, see Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445, 456; and, as rele-
vant here, States may be sued if they agreed their sovereignty would
yield to the exercise of a particular federal power as part of the “plan 
of the Convention,” PennEast, 594 U. S., at ___—that is, if “the struc-
ture of the original Constitution itself” reflects a waiver of States’ im-
munity, Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 728. 

Consistent  with  these  principles,  the  Court  long  ago  found  struc-
tural  waiver  as  to  suits  between  States,  see  South  Dakota  v.  North 
Carolina, 192 U. S. 286, and suits by the United States against a State, 
see United States v. Texas, 143 U. S. 621.  A century later, in Central 
Va.  Community  College  v.  Katz,  546  U. S.  356,  the  Court  recognized 
another structural waiver, holding that Congress may authorize pri-
vate suits against States under the Bankruptcy Clause.  For several 
years, both before and after Katz, the Court declined to acknowledge 
additional  waivers  of  sovereign  immunity  under  Congress’  Article  I 
powers or to find Article I authority to abrogate immunity.  See, e.g., 
Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44; Florida Prepaid Post-
secondary  Ed.  Expense  Bd.  v.  College  Savings  Bank,  527  U. S.  627. 
Last Term, in PennEast, the Court considered whether Congress could, 
pursuant to its eminent domain power, authorize private suits against
States to enforce federally approved condemnations necessary to build 
interstate  pipelines.    PennEast  held  that  Congress  could  authorize 
such suits because, upon entering the federal system, the States im-
plicitly agreed their “eminent domain power would yield to that of the
Federal Government.”   594 U. S., at ___.  PennEast defined the test 
for structural waiver as whether the federal power is “complete in it-
self, and the States consented to the exercise of that power—in its en-
tirety—in the plan of the Convention.”  Id., at ___.  Pp. 4–6.

(b)   Congress’  power  to  build  and  maintain  the  Armed  Forces  fits 
PennEast’s test, as the Constitution’s text, its history, and this Court’s
precedents show.  To begin, the Constitution’s text strongly suggests a