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Text: Sprint, a national telecommunications service provider, has long paid intercarrier access fees to the Iowa commu­ nications company Windstream (formerly Iowa Telecom) for certain long distance calls placed by Sprint customers to Windstream’s in-state customers. In 2009, however, Sprint decided to withhold payment for a subset of those calls, classified as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), after concluding that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted intrastate regulation of VoIP traffic.1 In re­ sponse, Windstream threatened to block all calls to and from Sprint customers.

Sprint filed a complaint against Windstream with the IUB asking the Board to enjoin Windstream from discon­ tinuing service to Sprint. In Sprint’s view, Iowa law enti­ tled it to withhold payment while it contested the access charges and prohibited Windstream from carrying out its disconnection threat. In answer to Sprint’s complaint, Windstream retracted its threat to discontinue serving Sprint, and Sprint moved, successfully, to withdraw its complaint. Because the conflict between Sprint and Wind­ stream over VoIP calls was “likely to recur,” however, the IUB decided to continue the proceedings to resolve the underlying legal question, i.e., whether VoIP calls are subject to intrastate regulation. Order in Sprint Commu­ nications Co. v. Iowa Telecommunications Servs., Inc., No. FCU–2010–0001 (IUB, Feb. 1, 2010), p. 6 (IUB Order). The question retained by the IUB, Sprint argued, was governed by federal law, and was not within the IUB’s adjudicative jurisdiction. The IUB disagreed, ruling that the intrastate fees applied to VoIP calls.2

Seeking to overturn the Board’s ruling, Sprint com­ menced two lawsuits. First, Sprint sued the members of the IUB (respondents here)3 in their official capacities in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. In its federal-court complaint, Sprint sought a declaration that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the IUB’s decision; as relief, Sprint requested an injunction against enforcement of the IUB’s order. Second, Sprint petitioned for review of the IUB’s order in Iowa state court. The state petition reiterated the preemption argument Sprint made in its federal-court complaint; in addition, Sprint asserted state law and procedural due process claims. Because Eighth Circuit precedent effectively required a plaintiff to exhaust state remedies before proceeding to federal court, see Alleghany Corp. v. McCartney, 896 F. 2d 1138 (1990), Sprint urges that it filed the state suit as a protective measure. Failing to do so, Sprint explains, risked losing the opportunity to obtain any review, federal or state, should the federal court decide to abstain after the expiration of the Iowa statute of limitations. See Brief for Petitioner 7–8.4

As Sprint anticipated, the IUB filed a motion asking the Federal District Court to abstain in light of the state suit, citing Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). The District Court granted the IUB’s motion and dismissed the suit. The IUB’s decision, and the pending state-court review of it, the District Court said, composed one “uninterruptible process” implicating important state interests. On that ground, the court ruled, Younger abstention was in order. Sprint Communications Co. v. Berntsen, No. 4:11–cv– 00183–JAJ (SD Iowa, Aug. 1, 2011), App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a.

For the most part, the Eighth Circuit agreed with the District Court’s judgment. The Court of Appeals rejected the argument, accepted by several of its sister courts, that Younger abstention is appropriate only when the parallel state proceedings are “coercive,” rather than “remedial,” in nature. 690 F. 3d 864, 868 (2012); cf. Guillemard-Ginorio v. Contreras-Gómez, 585 F. 3d 508, 522 (CA1 2009) (“[P]roceedings must be coercive, and in most cases, state­ initiated, in order to warrant abstention.”). Instead, the Eighth Circuit read this Court’s precedent to require Younger abstention whenever “an ongoing state judicial proceeding . . . implicates important state interests, and . . . the state proceedings provide adequate opportunity to raise [federal] challenges.” 690 F. 3d, at 867 (citing Mid­ dlesex County Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U. S. 423, 432 (1982)). Those criteria were satisfied here, the appeals court held, because the ongoing state­ court review of the IUB’s decision concerned Iowa’s “im­ portant state interest in regulating and enforcing its intrastate utility rates.” 690 F. 3d, at 868. Recognizing the “possibility that the parties [might] return to federal court,” however, the Court of Appeals vacated the judg­ ment dismissing Sprint’s complaint. In lieu of dismissal, the Eighth Circuit remanded the case, instructing the District Court to enter a stay during the pendency of the state-court action. Id., at 869.

We granted certiorari to decide whether, consistent with our delineation of cases encompassed by the Younger doctrine, abstention was appropriate here. 569 U. S. ___ (2013).5