Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 31

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

to  subject  nonconsenting  States  to  private  suits  for  dam-
ages in state courts.”  Id., at 712; see also id., at 754.  That 
holding plainly applied to all Article I powers.  Thus, we did
not engage in a clause-by-clause parsing of Article I’s vari-
ous powers, nor did we even mention which Article I power 
authorized the FLSA.  It did not matter because the States 
would not have surrendered to Congress any of the immun-
ity they enjoyed in their own courts. 

Finally,  concluding  its  analysis,  Alden  contrasted  the 
States’ amenability to suit “by the United States on behalf
of  the  employees”  with  a  suit  “by  the  employees”  them-
selves, holding that “history, precedent, and the structure
of the Constitution make clear that, under the plan of the 
Convention, the States have consented to suits of the first 
kind  but  not  of  the  second.”  Id.,  at  759–760  (emphasis 
added).3    The  question  that  Alden  answered  plainly  em-
braces the one that the Court answers today.  And there is 
no serious dispute that Alden’s explicit holding is irrecon-
cilable with the Court’s holding here. 

* 

* 
  Until  today,  Alden  meant  what  it  said.  Both  Katz  and 
PennEast considered plan-of-the-Convention waivers appli-
cable to federal, not state, court.  See Katz, 546 U. S., at 360; 
PennEast, 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4).  Nothing in those 

* 

—————— 

3 The Court ignores all of this and instead invokes inapposite language
elsewhere in Alden.  For instance, the Court emphasizes that Alden ex-
pressly recognized “ ‘the postulate that States . . . shall be immune from 
suits,  without  their consent,  save  where there  has  been  “a  surrender  of 
this immunity in the plan of the convention.” ’ ” Ante, at 14 (quoting Alden, 
527 U. S., at 730).  That is true enough, but beside the point.  After stat-
ing this “postulate,” Alden exhaustively evaluated constitutional history, 
precedent, and structure and expressly held that the States, “under the 
plan of the Convention, . . . have [not] consented to suits” filed by private 
individuals in state court.  Id., at 759–760 (emphasis added).