Court Opinion

ID: 9428923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:09.484714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:16.189964
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join,
concurring.
As the Court notes, ante, at 603, n. 12, the question whether a State can bring a parens patriae action within the original jurisdiction of this Court may well turn on considerations quite different from those implicated where the State *611seeks to press a parens patriae claim in the district courts. The Framers, in establishing original jurisdiction in this Court for suits “in which a State shall be a Party,” Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 2, and Congress, in implementing the grant of original jurisdiction with respect to suits between States, 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), may well have conceived of a somewhat narrower category of cases as presenting issues appropriate for initial determination in this Court than the full range of cases to which a State may have an interest cognizable by a federal court. The institutional limits on the Court’s ability to accommodate such suits accentuates the need for more restrictive access to the original docket. In addition, because the judicial power of the United States does not extend to suits “commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State,” U. S. Const., Arndt. 11, where one State brings a suit parens patriae against another State, a more circumspect inquiry may be required in order to ensure that the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment are not being too easily circumvented by the device of the State’s bringing suit on behalf of some private party. Of course, none of the concerns that might counsel for a restrictive approach to the question of parens patriae standing is present in this case.
In cases such as the present one, I can discern no basis either in the Constitution or in policy for denying a State the opportunity to vindicate the federal rights of its citizens. At the very least, the prerogative of a State to bring suits in federal court should be commensurate with the ability of private organizations. A private organization may bring suit to vindicate its own concrete interest in performing those activities for which it was formed. E. g., Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U. S. 363, 378-379 (1982);1 Arlington Heights *612v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 263 (1977); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428 (1963). See also Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 109-111 (1979) (standing of municipality premised on diminished tax base and other “harms flowing from the realities of a racially segregated community”). Cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 739 (1972).2 There is no doubt that Puerto Rico’s interest in this litigation compares favorably to interests of the private organizations, and municipality, in the cases cited above.
More significantly, a State is no ordinary litigant. As a sovereign entity, a State is entitled to assess its needs, and decide which concerns of its citizens warrant its protection and intervention. I know of nothing — except the Constitution or overriding federal law — that might lead a federal court to superimpose its judgment for that of a State with respect to the substantiality or legitimacy of a State’s assertion of sovereign interest.
With these considerations in mind, I join the opinion of the Court.

 Indeed, in Havens we held that interference with HOME’S “ability to provide counseling and referral services,” 455 U. S., at 379, provided it with standing to vindicate claims under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. In this case, the alleged violations of the Wagner-Peyser Act, 29 U. S. C. § 49 *612et seq., directly interfere with Puerto Rico’s ability to perform the job referral service that it has undertaken as part of its sovereign responsibility to its citizens.

 A private organization may also maintain a federal-court action on behalf of its members. E. g., NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428 (1963); National Motor Freight Assn. v. United States, 372 U. S. 246 (1963) (per curium). See Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, 341-345 (1977).