Opinion ID: 789765
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: waiver of eleventh amendment immunity pursuant to conditional spending programs

Text: 28 Keeping firmly in mind the Court's current framework for analyzing when a state may be subject to suit in federal court, we turn to the particular facts and legal contentions of the instant case. The two statutory provisions at issue purport to have conditioned Louisiana's receipt of federal funds on its waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity to suits under § 504 and the IDEA. Specifically, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7 conditions a state's receipt of federal money on its waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity to actions under § 504 and other federal anti-discrimination statutes: 29 A State shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States from suit in Federal court for a violation of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the provisions of any other Federal statute prohibiting discrimination by recipients of Federal financial assistance. 29 30 Similarly, 20 U.S.C. § 1403 30 conditions a state's receipt of federal IDEA funds on its consent to suit under that Act. 31 Applying the framework set forth in Dole, we proceed to determine whether Louisiana validly waived its immunity when it accepted the conditioned federal dollars. 31 Louisiana does not dispute that the first and third prongs of the Dole analysis, i.e., whether the Spending Clause statute at issue was enacted in pursuit of the general welfare, and whether the condition is sufficiently related to the federal interest in the program funded, 32 are satisfied here. Consequently, we restrict our consideration to the three remaining prongs of the Dole test. Following prior panels of this court, 33 and every circuit (but one) that has made these inquiries, we conclude that the statutes at issue validly conditioned Louisiana's receipt of these federal funds on its waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. 34 32 First, we determine whether the conditions contained in 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7 and 20 U.S.C. § 1403 are unambiguous and, consequently, whether Louisiana knowingly waived its immunity to actions under § 504 and the IDEA by accepting federal funds. 33
34 In the face of the unequivocal language of § 2000d-7 to the effect that [a] state shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States from suit in Federal court for a violation of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 35 Louisiana argues legalistically that, because Congress did not use the words waiver or condition, the condition fails the clear-statement rule. 36 This argument — that absent talismanic incantations of magic words, there can be no waiver — is little more than frivolous. 37 The Supreme Court has already noted, albeit in dicta, that in § 2000d-7 Congress sought to provide the sort of unequivocal waiver that our precedents demand. 38 More importantly, our decision in Pederson v. Louisiana State University, which we remain convinced was correctly decided, forecloses this line of attack. 39 35
36 Louisiana also argues that because § 2000d-7 and § 1403 fail as § 5 attempts by Congress to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity, the same provisions of those statutes cannot satisfy the clear-statement rule for Spending Clause purposes. We reject Louisiana's attempt to pigeonhole this statutory language in mutually exclusive terms. 37 We held in Pederson that, in § 2000d-7, Congress successfully codified a statute which clearly, unambiguously, and unequivocally conditions receipt of federal funds under Title IX on the State's waiver of Eleventh Amendment Immunity. 40 And in Lesage v. Texas, 41 we ruled that Congress unquestionably enacted 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7 with the `intent' to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment's congressional enforcement power. The purpose of the provision, enacted in 1986, was to legislatively overrule the result in Atascadero.  42 Thus, in Pederson, we recognized § 2000d-7 as a clear statement for waiver vis-a-vis the Spending Clause, and in Lesage , we recognized that the very same provision could satisfy abrogation under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. 38 Just because particular language may or may not function with equal efficacy under both exceptions to Eleventh Amendment immunity, does not mean that it fails the clear-statement rule. As we concluded in AT&T , the rule requires only that the state has been put on notice clearly and unambiguously by the federal statute that the state's particular conduct or transaction will subject it to federal court suits brought by individuals. 43 Congress need not declare in the statute whether it is proceeding under abrogation or waiver, or both. For the purpose of the clear-statement rule, § 2000d-7 — janus-faced as it may be — poses no constitutional impediment to our finding valid waiver by consent. We conclude that the conditions contained in § 2000d-7 and § 1403 are unambiguous, as required by Dole. 39 Undaunted, Louisiana still contends that it did not knowingly waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity. Louisiana and the dissent rely on Garcia v. S.U.N.Y. Health Sciences Ctr., 44 which looked to the Supreme Court's decision in Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett 45 to justify departing from the heavy weight of authority supporting waiver based on the clarity of the language in § 2000d-7. Garrett examined whether, in Title I of the ADA, Congress could constitutionally abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity. 46 The Garrett Court concluded that Title I of the ADA was outside the scope of valid § 5 legislation; therefore, Congress's attempt at abrogation failed, and private suits against states in federal court were barred by the Eleventh Amendment. 47 40 The lawsuits in Garcia involved disputes that arose between September 1993 and August 1995. 48 During that pre- Garrett period, it was universally accepted that the ADA validly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity. Rather than looking at the clear-statement rule and the state's acceptance of funds, Garcia analyzed whether a state would have realized — known — that it was abandoning its Eleventh Amendment immunity by accepting federal funds during the period of time applicable to the lawsuits at issue there (and here). 49 The Garcia court noted that, during the relevant period, Title II of the ADA was reasonably understood to abrogate [the state's] sovereign immunity under Congress's Commerce Clause authority. 50 The court also pointed out that the requirements of Title II and § 504 are virtually identical. 51 Therefore, concluded the court, because the state defendant thought that it could be sued under Title II, it had nothing to lose by accepting federal funds and redundantly waiving immunity to § 504 suits in the process. 52 41 Louisiana and the dissent maintain that we should follow the panel and apply the logic of Garcia to the instant case. First, Louisiana contends that, because it believed that the Rehabilitation Act had already abrogated its Eleventh Amendment immunity, it did not and could not know that [it] retained any sovereign immunity to waive by accepting conditioned federal funds. 53 Likewise, Louisiana asks us to conclude that § 1403 was an unsuccessful attempt at abrogation; therefore, maintains Louisiana, it could not have knowingly waived its immunity under the IDEA when it accepted federal IDEA funds. 42 Even though it found that the statutory provisions at issue are unambiguous, 54 the panel nevertheless concluded that Louisiana's purported waivers of Eleventh Amendment immunity are invalid because they were not knowing. The panel drew support from the holding in Garcia, but its reasoning differed slightly from the Second Circuit's. According to the panel opinion, [b]elieving that [the Rehabilitation Act and the IDEA] validly abrogated their sovereign immunity, the State defendants did not and could not know that they retained any sovereign immunity to waive by accepting conditioned federal funds. 55 43 The fatal flaw with that syllogism lies in the fact that neither the mandates of the Rehabilitation Act nor the requirements of the IDEA apply to a state agency that has not received either some federal funding (in the case of the Rehabilitation Act) or federal IDEA dollars (in the case of the IDEA). 56 Therefore, it is impossible for Congress to have abrogated a state's immunity to § 504 or IDEA suits if the relevant state agency did not receive federal funds during the time period in which it was alleged to have violated an individual's statutory rights. It follows indisputably that Louisiana's Eleventh Amendment immunity to § 504 and IDEA claims was intact before the state accepted federal funds. Thus, Louisiana did have Eleventh Amendment immunity to waive by accepting the clearly conditioned federal funds. 44 The dissent nevertheless insists that, during the time that § 504 and the IDEA were thought to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity, Louisiana could have believed that it lacked immunity to § 504 and IDEA suits even before it received federal funds under those statutes. 57 This ignores the conditional-spending nature of the Rehabilitation Act and the IDEA. The Acts' substantive provisions regulate only state agencies that have accepted the relevant federal funds. Thus, it makes no sense to say that the State was subject to private actions for damages under § 504 and the IDEA before the substantive provisions of those statutes applied to it. Contrary to the dissent's accusation, 58 we do not confuse the doctrines of abrogation and waiver; rather, we point out that — even before Garrett — Louisiana could have avoided suits under § 504 and the IDEA altogether by declining federal funding. Louisiana clearly had Eleventh Amendment immunity to waive at the time that it accepted the federal funds and expressly obligated itself to comply with the dictates of the Rehabilitation Act and the IDEA. 45 Further, during the relevant time period, §§ 2000d-7 and 1403 put each state on notice that, by accepting federal money, it was waiving its Eleventh Amendment immunity. Under Dole, if the clear-statement requirement is met, the state is conclusively presumed to have known that receipt of clearly conditioned federal funds requires the state to abide by the condition (i.e., waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity). 46 In addition, the Garcia approach is problematic for a number of reasons, the most fundamental of which is that, by focusing its inquiry on what the state could have believed, the Second Circuit engrafted a subjective-intent element onto the otherwise objective Spending Clause waiver inquiry. In other words, Garcia 's approach employs the wrong jurisprudential test, because it distorts what is necessary to show knowledge for Spending Clause waivers. Analytically, the knowledge question that we ask when we undertake the Spending Clause waiver inquiry is coextensive with the clear-statement rule; for, when a state actually accepts funds that are clearly conditioned on a waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity, it is held objectively to know that it is accepting all clearly stated conditions. That it might not know subjectively whether it had any immunity to waive by agreeing to those conditions is wholly irrelevant. 47 The dissent asserts that, by focusing on the clear-statement requirement, we have disregarded College Savings Bank 's clear declaration requirement. But College Savings Bank was not a conditional-spending case. There, the Court invalidated constructive waivers of Eleventh Amendment immunity based upon the State's mere presence in a field subject to congressional regulation. 59 Such a constructive waiver is a far cry from a state's acceptance of federal funds that are explicitly conditioned on its waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. In fact, the College Savings Bank opinion expressly distinguished conditional-spending waivers of Eleventh Amendment immunity, which it said were fundamentally different from illegitimate constructive waivers. 60 Nothing in College Savings Bank indicates that, when the clear-statement requirement is met, a state can be said to lack knowledge that by accepting federal funds it waives its Eleventh Amendment immunity. 48 In sum, Garcia and the dissent would subjugate the bright-line of objective reasoning to the slippery slope of assessing a state's subjective belief. 61 If, like the panel, we were to follow that approach, we would be getting into the business of looking past the straightforward objective facts, i.e., (1) the clear statement requiring waiver and (2) the state's actual, uncoerced acceptance of federal funds, in an attempt to fathom what was in a state's head, a precarious exercise indeed. The clear-statement rule guards against post hoc questions about intent. 49 Accordingly, we hold that Louisiana's waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity to actions under § 504 and the IDEA was knowing. 62 Still, we must determine whether an independent constitutional bar prevents Congress from conditioning the receipt of federal funds on a state's waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. 50 3. Can Congress Condition Waiver of Eleventh Amendment Immunity When It Exercises its Spending Power? 51 Louisiana challenges Congress's power under the Spending Clause to condition receipt of federal education funds on a state's waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. This position is frivolous. We have consistently interpreted Supreme Court guidance as permitting such conditional spending programs, as has every other circuit that has squarely addressed the issue. 63 We do not change course today. 52 4. Is Conditioning Acceptance of Federal Funds a Violation of the Unconstitutional-Conditions Doctrine? 53 Louisiana also attempts to invoke the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine to challenge Congress's ability to condition the acceptance of federal funds on waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. In the most general sense, the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine examines the extent to which government benefits may be conditioned or distributed in ways that burden constitutional rights or principles. 64 For at least two reasons, Louisiana's reliance on the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine is misplaced. 54 First, as evidenced by the dearth of cases employing it in this context, 65 the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine is most meaningful when the government imposes a condition of questionable constitutional character on an individual right. But here, federal and state sovereigns are on opposite sides of the controversy, and the constitutional right at issue is structural rather than personal. Consequently, for the reasons announced in the Third Circuit's analysis in Koslow v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the doctrine is inapplicable. The Koslow court considered whether the Rehabilitation Act, including § 2000d-7, imposed an unconstitutional condition on Pennsylvania's receipt of federal funds. In refusing to apply the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine to the conditioning of federal funds on the waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity, the Third Circuit stated: 55 [T]he Supreme Court has not yet applied the unconstitutional conditions doctrine to cases between two sovereigns. Unlike private persons, states have the resources to serve their citizens even if the federal government, through economic incentives, encourages a particular result. A state's political powers — not the least of which is the power to levy taxes on its citizens — help ensure the federal government does not coerce the state through economic encouragement. An individual citizen, in contrast, lacks these formidable institutional resources. 66 56 We embrace that reasoning. 57 Second, the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine, even when applied piecemeal by the Supreme Court, is anchored at least in part in a theory of coercion or compulsion. 67 In this context, that concern is subsumed in the non-coercion prong of the Dole test. 68 In other words, in the Spending Clause context, any role that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine might have in cabining Congress's authority to give funds in exchange for waiving immunity is already part-and-parcel of the standard Spending Clause analysis. Thus, no independent constitutional bar invalidates Louisiana's waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. 58 5. Are These Programs Coercive? 59 In light of Dole, we must determine whether the conditional-spending schemes at issue are unduly coercive. We hold that they are not. A state can prevent suits against a particular agency under § 504 by declining federal funds for that agency. 69 A state can avoid suit under the IDEA merely by refusing IDEA funds. And, to do so in either case, the state would not have to refuse all federal assistance. 70 Moreover, no circuit has accepted a coercion challenge to either the Rehabilitation Act or the IDEA. 71 Therefore, we refuse to invalidate Louisiana's waiver on coercion grounds.