Opinion ID: 496991
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Constitutional Design

Text: 62 The eleventh amendment reflects our system of checks and balances by limiting the power to abrogate sovereign immunity to the freely elected legislative branch. This design permits the legislative branch limited power to abrogate state immunity pursuant to grants of constitutional authority, while preventing the judiciary from independently using Article III to do the same. By adopting the eleventh amendment Congress and the states expressed their desire to limit judicial action. Congress, however, never meant to curtail its own power to limit sovereign immunity where appropriate. Indeed, holding that states maintain their immunity in the face of national control is inconsistent with the constitutional plan. Tribe, 89 Harv.L.Rev. at 694-95 (footnotes omitted). 63 This dichotomy between the power of the judiciary and the Congress is particularly significant in the area of commerce clause regulation. In this regard, it is pertinent that CERCLA is a commerce clause regulation. As Justice Brennan has stated in dissent, judicial interpretation of our Constitution settled since the time of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall ... postulate[s] that the Constitution contemplates that restraints upon exercise by Congress of its plenary commerce power lie in the political process and not in the judicial process. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 857, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 2476, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Justice Brennan's dissenting position, which mirrors the majority position in the case overruled by Usery, Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968), has again come to be the law of the land. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 550-52, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 1017-19, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985). In contrast, our system of checks and balances dictates that the unelected federal judiciary, isolated from the political pressures that inhere in the need for reelection, must be constrained by such a constitutional restriction from abrogation of sovereign immunity. 64 In addition, the requirement of a clear statement before Congress may override the eleventh amendment assures that congressional intent will be followed, see Peel v. Florida Department of Transportation, 600 F.2d 1070, 1081 (5th Cir.1979), and serves to check judicial interpretation of statutes. See Welch, 107 S.Ct. at 2946; cf. American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 17, 71 S.Ct. 534, 542, 95 L.Ed. 702 (1951) (The jurisdiction of the federal courts is carefully guarded against expansion by judicial interpretation....). To extend the eleventh amendment to render nugatory a clear expression of congressional intent to abrogate state immunity would thwart the Constitution's plan by ignoring the representative nature of Congress. 65 The scope of Congress' power to abrogate the eleventh amendment under Article I is also limited by states' representation in Congress. The Congress, comprised wholly of delegates chosen by states (through their subdivisions), will respond to state needs and therefore does not require the eleventh amendment limitation. The Supreme Court in Garcia, 469 U.S. at 550, 105 S.Ct. at 1018, observed that the principal means chosen by the Framers to ensure the role of the States in the Federal system lies in the structure of the Federal Government itself. And, as Professor Tribe notes, it has generally been recognized that the states are represented in Congress and that Congress will be attentive to concerns of state governments as separate sovereigns. Tribe, 89 Harv.L.Rev. at 695 (footnote omitted).
66 Extending the eleventh amendment to prohibit congressional power to abrogate under Article I would ignore the states' representation in Congress and their consent to diminished power implicit in their acceptance of the Constitution. The Supreme Court itself has recognized that in some situations states have given up their immunity in the constitutional plan: States of the Union, still possessing attributes of sovereignty, shall be immune from suits, without their consent, save where there has been 'a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention.'  Principality of Monaco, 292 U.S. at 322-23, 54 S.Ct. at 748 (quoting The Federalist, No. 81 (A. Hamilton)) (footnote omitted). 67 Thus, just as Congress acting pursuant to section 5 of the fourteenth amendment is exercising legislative authority that is plenary within the terms of the constitutional grant ... under one section of a constitutional amendment whose other sections by their own terms embody limitations on state authority, Fitzpatrick, 427 U.S. at 456, 96 S.Ct. at 2671, so Congress acts under its Article I powers to regulate Commerce ... among the several States, Sec. 8, cl. 3, and [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers. Sec. 8, cl. 18. By assenting to federal authority to regulate commerce, the states necessarily surrendered their sovereignty over that area. There was not a State in the Union, in which there did not, at that time, exist a variety of commercial regulations; ... By common consent, those laws dropped lifeless from their statute books, for want of sustaining power that had been relinquished to Congress. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 226, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). 9 68 Congress' authority over interstate commerce stems from the plenary powers that have been granted to our national legislature and represents a displacement of state sovereignty. See Garcia, 469 U.S. at 548-49, 105 S.Ct. at 1016-17 (citing both Art. I, Sec. 8 and the fourteenth amendment as sharp contraction[s] of state sovereignty). Hence, every federal appellate court to have addressed the question has found that Congress may subject the states to suit in federal court, the eleventh amendment notwithstanding, when acting pursuant to its plenary powers. See McVey Trucking, 812 F.2d at 328; County of Monroe v. Florida, 678 F.2d 1124, 1128-35 (2d Cir.1982) (congressional power over extradition, Art. IV, Sec. 2, cl. 2), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1104, 103 S.Ct. 726, 74 L.Ed.2d 951 (1983); Peel v. Florida Department of Transportation, 600 F.2d 1070, 1074-82 (5th Cir.1979) (war powers clause, Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 11-13); Mills Music, Inc. v. Arizona, 591 F.2d 1278, 1285 (9th Cir.1979) (copyright and patent clause, Art I, Sec. 8, cl. 8); Jennings v. Illinois Office of Educ., 589 F.2d 935, 937-44 (7th Cir.) (war powers clauses), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 967, 99 S.Ct. 2417, 60 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1979). We agree.
69 The constitutional scheme of checks and balances places powerful constraints, both structural and political, upon the abrogation of the states' eleventh amendment immunity. However, the participation of the states in our federal scheme has resulted in a relinquishment of state authority in the commerce area. We conclude that a constitutional grant of plenary authority to Congress is sufficient to support legislation that subjects the states to suit in federal court when the legislation speaks with unmistakable clarity. We, therefore, hold that when acting under the commerce clause to enact CERCLA and amend it with SARA, Congress possessed the power to abrogate the eleventh amendment. 10