Court Opinion

ID: 8969621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 10:23:02.039109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:10:24.236747
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I am unable to join my colleagues in exploring the boundaries of the eleventh amendment because I do not agree that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction and sovereign immunity are both threshold inquiries, but the former presents a far easier question and I would therefore dispose of the case on those grounds. While I don’t necessarily disagree with the majority’s analysis of the eleventh amendment issue, the question is a close one, having already caused a split in the circuits; I would await a case where our jurisdiction is more secure before expounding on this difficult point. I must therefore respectfully dissent.
To state a federal claim, it is not enough to invoke a constitutional provision or to come up with a catalogue of federal statutes allegedly implicated. Rather, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished, it is necessary to state a claim that is substantial: “[T]he federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are ‘so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit,’ ‘wholly insubstantial,’ ‘obviously frivolous,’ ‘plainly unsubstantial,’ or ‘no longer open to discussion.’” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1378-79, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974) (citations omitted). We do not have jurisdiction over a claim, no matter how federal it purports to be, that is “ ‘patently without merit, or so insubstantial, improbable, or foreclosed by Supreme *1391Court precedent as not to involve a federal controversy.’ ” City of Las Vegas v. Clark County, 755 F.2d 697, 701 (9th Cir.1985) (quoting Demarest v. United States, 718 F.2d 964, 966 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 950, 104 S.Ct. 2150, 80 L.Ed.2d 536 (1984)).
While this doctrine has been criticized, see, e.g., Hagans, 415 U.S. at 538, 94 S.Ct. at 1379; Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 404, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 1213, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970); Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 682-83, 66 S.Ct. 773, 776, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946), it serves an important practical purpose: It prevents plaintiffs from using a federal court’s pendent jurisdiction to propel state claims into federal court by attaching them to meritless federal claims. See Hagans, 415 U.S. at 555, 94 S.Ct. at 1388 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R.R., 213 U.S. 175, 191-92, 29 S.Ct. 451, 454-55, 53 L.Ed. 753 (1909). And that is precisely what’s happening here.
In 1980, the Alaska Legislature enacted a revenue sharing program according to which all unincorporated communities with a Native village government would receive $25,000 a year. The following year, the state Attorney General advised the Department of Community and Regional Affairs, the state agency responsible for implementing the program, that the program violated the equal protection and public purpose clauses of the Alaska Constitution, art. I, § 1 and art. IX, § 6. In order to comply with the state constitution, the Department made the funds available to all unincorporated communities, whether or not they had Native village governments. The appellants, whose share of the pie may have been diminished when the class of recipients was broadened, disagreed with the Attorney General’s analysis and filed this suit.
The villages’ purported federal claim is that the state, once having decided to favor Indians over other citizens, is now precluded from treating them the same. As a matter of federal equal protection, this claim is frivolous: I am aware of no constitutional provision that requires a state to treat Indians and non-Indians differently. While the equal protection clause may permit states to favor Indians, it certainly does not compel it. The villages’ equal protection claim is not aided in any way by the fact that the state Attorney General’s equality requirement is based on the Alaska Constitution; the federal equal protection clause does not preclude the states from adopting constitutional provisions that guarantee equal treatment for their citizens.
Equally frivolous are the villages’ claims based on various federal statutes intended to further tribal self-government. The Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U.S.C. §§ 461-92 (1982 & Supp. IV 1986), comprises a hodgepodge of statutes relating to land transfer and tribal organization. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90-284, 82 Stat. 77-80 (codified as amended in scattered sections of title 25), extends a number of federal constitutional rights to members of Indian tribes and authorizes state courts to assume jurisdiction over certain causes of action arising on Indian reservations. The Indian Financing Act of 1974, Pub.L. 93-262, 88 Stat. 77 (codified as amended in scattered sections of title 25), provides credit to members of Indian tribes. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, Pub.L. 93-638, 88 Stat. 2203 (codified as amended in scattered sections of titles 5, 25, 42 & 50), provides federal assistance for, among other things, tribal governments and school districts educating tribe members. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Pub.L. 94-437, 90 Stat. 1400 (codified as amended in scattered sections of title 25), as its name implies, relates to health care. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, Pub.L. 95-608, 92 Stat. 3069 (codified as amended in scattered sections of title 25), includes provisions covering child custody proceedings and federal assistance for various family-related programs. Many of these statutes provide money to Indian tribes, but that is the full extent of their relevance to this lawsuit. By no stretch of the imagination do they preempt state constitutional provisions calling for equal treatment of Indians and non-Indians.
*1392The villages’ third and fourth federal causes of action are similarly insubstantial. Section 476 of title 25 permits Indian tribes to organize, adopt a constitution, and negotiate with the federal, state and local governments. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how this statute could be violated by diluting the villages’ share of state revenues. The villages’ contention that the dilution extinguished their powers of self-government and destroyed their Native culture, in violation of the first amendment, is hyperbole.
Even under the most generous construction of the federal Constitution and title 25 of the United States Code, the four federal claims fit any of the Hagans formulations of insubstantiality: They are “obviously frivolous;” they are “plainly unsubstantial;” they are “absolutely devoid of merit.” They serve a single purpose: to transport state claims into federal court. I would accordingly affirm the district court’s dismissal for lack of a substantial federal question and save the difficult eleventh amendment issue for another day. Judging from the state’s relationship with the villages, that day may be coming soon enough.