Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 42

20 

TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

of  the  Federal  Government  using  those  powers  to  impose 
financial liabilities on States enforceable by private parties. 
Nor is there any evidence demonstrating that any kind of
judicial  proceedings—let  alone  private  damages  actions—
are “inextricably intertwined” with the war powers in the 
way  that  judicial  condemnation  actions  are  intertwined
with eminent domain.  See supra, at 14–15, n. 6. 

Second,  PennEast  emphasized  that  the  Constitution
vests  the  Federal  Government  “ ‘with  full  and  complete
power  to  execute  and  carry  out  its  purposes’ ”—including 
the power of eminent domain—and that history shows that 
the  Government  may  exercise  that  sovereign  power 
through  private  delegatees.    594 U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at 
15).  Here, there is no argument that employees granted a
cause of action under USERRA are “delegatees” of the war
powers in any meaningful sense.

Third, PennEast reasoned that recognizing New Jersey’s
immunity  claim  would  require  federal  delegatees  to  take 
state  property,  thereby  forcing  States  to  file  inverse  con-
demnation  actions  for  just  compensation.    See  id.,  at  ___ 
(slip op., at 17).  The Court did not think that kind of ar-
rangement “would vindicate the principles underlying state
sovereign  immunity,”  including  the  principle  of  affording
States  “the  respect  owed  them  as  joint  sovereigns.”    Ibid. 
(internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    Here,  by  contrast, 
there  is  no  sense  in  which  confirming  Texas’  immunity 
would similarly undermine the principles underlying that 
immunity. 

* 

* 

* 

In  the  end,  the  “history,  practice,  precedent,  and  the 
structure of the Constitution” all demonstrate that States 
did  not  surrender  their  sovereign  immunity  in  their  own 
courts when Congress legislates pursuant to one of its war 
powers.  Alden, 527 U. S., at 741, 754.