Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 44

22 

TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

nent domain power was “complete in itself ” and, by its na-
ture, “inextricably intertwined” with judicial condemnation
proceedings,  States  surrendered  any  sovereign  immunity
that would otherwise render the eminent domain power in-
complete.  PennEast, 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17).  By
saddling “completeness” with more analytical weight than
it  can  bear,  the  Court  has  devised  a  method  that  has  the 
certainty  and  objectivity  of  a  Rorschach  test.    Beyond  its 
inconsistency with PennEast, this contrivance also threat-
ens to rework or erase the Court’s prevailing sovereign im-
munity jurisprudence. 

A 
The  sentence  in  PennEast  upon  which  the  Court  fabri-
cates its test for plan-of-the-Convention waiver reads as fol-
lows: “[T]he federal eminent domain power is ‘complete in 
itself,’  and  the  States  consented  to  the  exercise  of  that 
power—in its entirety—in the plan of the Convention.”  594 
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 22) (quoting Kohl v. United States, 
91 U. S. 367, 374 (1876); citation omitted).  The Court today 
claims that this sentence in PennEast reduced our decades-
old State sovereign immunity jurisprudence to merely ask-
ing  whether  a  federal  power  is  “complete  in  itself.”    That 
cannot be correct. 

The Court in PennEast borrowed the “complete in itself ” 
idea  from  Kohl,  which  had  approved  the  Federal  Govern-
ment’s condemnation of private land to build a post office in
Cincinnati, Ohio.  91 U. S., at 373–374.  Although the Fed-
eral  Government  had  relied  on  Ohio’s  eminent  domain 
power, rather than its own, Kohl made clear that the Fed-
eral  Government’s  authority  to  condemn  land  did  not  de-
pend upon state law.  In doing so, Kohl stated that “[i]f the
United States have the [eminent domain] power, it must be
complete in itself.”  Id., at 374.  “It can neither be enlarged 
nor diminished by a State.  Nor can any State prescribe the 
manner  in  which  it  must  be  exercised.    The  consent  of  a