Opinion ID: 613270
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Branson and Constitutional Claims

Text: When Branson granted political subdivision standing on a federal preemption claim, it never declared that a political subdivision could sue its parent state only for a preemption claim. [8] The majority would freeze this circuit's exception to the political subdivision standing doctrine to certain preemption claims. But Branson recognized a broader exception that would allow future consideration of claims based on constitutional provisions written to protect structural rights. Branson did not list which constitutional provisions might qualify because the immediate issue was whether the plaintiffs had standing for their preemption claim. The court left open whether a constitutional provision such as the dormant Commerce Clause would fit its structural rights category. In Branson, school districts brought a preemption challenge against a voter-approved amendment to the Colorado Constitution, alleging that the amendment violated a federal land trust established by Congress in the Colorado Enabling Act. See 161 F.3d at 625. The defendant state officials argued that the school districts, as political subdivisions, could not sue their parent state. Id. at 628. We recognized the political subdivision standing doctrine stemming from Trenton and Williams: It is well-settled that a political subdivision may not bring a federal suit against its parent state based on rights secured through the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. (citations omitted). We upheld the school districts' right to sue. Id. at 629-30. Addressing the scope of political subdivision standing, we held that, [d]espite the sweeping breadth of [their] language, the earlier cases rejecting standing for municipalities raising constitutional challenges against their parent states stand only for the limited proposition that a municipality may not bring a constitutional challenge against its creating state when the constitutional provision that supplies the basis for the complaint was written to protect individual rights, as opposed to collective or structural rights. Id. We concluded that a political subdivision has standing to bring a constitutional claim against its creating state when the substance of its claim relies on the Supremacy Clause and a putatively controlling federal law. Id. Branson did not carve out from Trenton and its progeny an exception to political subdivision standing doctrine just to allow judicial review of preemption claims. Instead, Branson read Trenton as establishing a limited proposition that blocks judicial review only when the constitutional provision that supplies the basis for the complaint was written to protect individual rights, as opposed to collective or structural rights. Id. In this case, the City of Hugo, an Oklahoma political subdivision, sued members of the OWRB, an Oklahoma state agency, in their official capacities. [9] The difference between this case and Branson is that Hugo asserts a dormant Commerce Clause claim and the Branson plaintiffs alleged a preemption claim. This court has not previously addressed whether a political subdivision can sue a state for a dormant Commerce Clause violation, but Branson clearly opened the door for a claim based on a constitutional provision ... written to protect ... structural rights. Id. at 628. The question in this case, clearly within the Branson ambit, is whether Hugo's dormant Commerce Clause claim is based on a structural or an individual right. [10] Branson explains that a political subdivision has standing to bring a constitutional claim against its creating state when the substance of its claim relies on the Supremacy Clause and a putatively controlling federal law.  Id. (emphasis added). Federal law includes, of course, not only statutes but also constitutional provisions. And Branson did not say that a political subdivision may only sue a parent state when its claim relies on the Supremacy Clause and a federal statute. Applying Branson to Hugo, the relevant comparison is not between a Supremacy Clause claim and a dormant Commerce Clause claim. It is between a preemption claim based on a federal statute and a dormant Commerce Clause claim. When either is the basis for a challenge to a state law, the Supremacy Clause is essential to the challenge. The majority is correct that a plaintiff alleging a Supremacy Clause claim is actually alleging a right under some other federal law, which trumps a contrary state law by operation of the Supremacy Clause. Maj. Op. at 1256 (emphasis in original). But that is exactly what Hugo is doing  alleging a claim under the dormant Commerce Clause, which is the other federal law [that] trumps a contrary state law by operation of the Supremacy Clause. The Supremacy Clause plays the same role in either case because it requires that the federal law, whether a federal statute or the dormant Commerce Clause, will prevail if it conflicts with state law. All claims alleging a conflict between state law and federal law rely upon the Supremacy Clause priority rule that the Constitution, and Laws of the United States ... and all Treaties ... shall be ... supreme. U.S. CONST. ART. VI, cl. 2. If Branson meant to restrict political subdivision standing to certain preemption claims, its distinction between individual and structural rights would be superfluous. Under the majority's reading, only preemption claims count as a structural right. But Branson did not distinguish between claims based on a constitutional provision and a federal statute. It distinguished between claims based on individual and structural rights. We should therefore decide whether a dormant Commerce Clause claim is based on an individual or structural right.