Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 79.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

19 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

main of the Federal Government and critical to its very ex-
istence—the  power  over  immigration,  the  importation  of 
goods, and taxation.”  430 U. S., at 456.  Cabining the cases
in  that  way,  the  employers  argued  that  “[t]he  theory  of
those cases is inapplicable where the Government exercises 
other  powers  that  [they]  regard[ed]  as  less  fundamental,
less exclusive, and less vital to the existence of the Nation, 
such as the power to regulate commerce among the several
States, the latter being the power Congress sought to exer-
cise in enacting [OSHA].”  Ibid.  The Court rejected the em-
ployers’  argument,  explaining  that  nothing  in  those  cases 
turned  on  those  particular  exercises  of  the  Government’s 
authority.  See id., at 456–457; cf. Crowell, 285 U. S., at 51 
(offering a list of “[f]amiliar illustrations of . . . exercise[s]”
of  Congress’s  constitutional  authority  that  have  fallen 
within the public-rights exception to Article III).

Second, even if Atlas Roofing had not explicitly rejected 
the  proposed distinction here, the majority cannot reconcile 
its restrictive view of the public-rights doctrine with Atlas 
Roofing  and  other  precedents.    For  example,  it  is  unclear
how OSHA, or the National Labor Relations Act at issue in 
Jones & Laughlin, would fit the majority’s view of the pub-
lic-rights  doctrine,  or  why  the  exercise  of  interstate-com-
merce power to enact those statutes would be any different
from the exercise of that same power to enact the federal-
securities laws at issue here.  See Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., 
at 457 (“It is also apparent that Jones & Laughlin, Pernell, 
and  Curtis  are  not  amenable  to  the  limitations  suggested 
by [the employers]”).

The majority’s description of the doctrine also fails to ac-
count  for  public  rights  that  do  not  belong  to  the  Federal 
Government in its sovereign capacity.  See Granfinanciera, 
492 U. S., at 54 (“[T]he Federal Government need not be a 
party  for  a  case  to  revolve  around  ‘public  rights’ ”).    This 
Court,  after  all,  has  rejected  the  confinement  of  public 
rights to that heartland.  See ibid. (“[W]e [have] rejected the