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Beyond "Marbury": Jurisdictional Self-Dealing In "Seminole Tribe", Laura S. Fitzgerald

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Seminole Tribe v. Florida, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution's Article III embodies a principle of state sovereign immunity which so constrains the federal judicial power that it prohibits Congress from granting federal courts subject matter jurisdiction over private lawsuits to enforce Article I legislation against states. At the same time, however, and again in Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe, the Court reaffirmed its own Ex parte Young doctrine, under which the Court itself unilaterally granted federal courts subject matter jurisdiction over private lawsuits to coerce states to comply with federal law despite state sovereign immunity. Neither in …