Rethinking the Supreme Court's Original Jurisdiction in State-Party Cases James E. Pfandert The continuing debate about the suability of States in federal courts has failed to consider adequately the Original Jurisdiction Clause of the Constitution. The Clause granted the Supreme Court originaljurisdiction over all State-party cases. In this Article, the author reclaims the Clause from obscurity and argues that the leading accounts of the Supreme Court's originaljurisdiction are incomplete because they fail to see the central role that the Clause played in ensuring a judicial negative on unconstitutional state action. Through a careful historical study, the author concludes that state sovereign immunity, combined with the inadequacy of appellatejuris- dictionfor enforcingfederal law againstthe states, led the framers to adopt the Original Jurisdiction Clause as a means of ensuring effective judicial enforcement of state compliance with federal law. The implication of the author'sstudy is that the current understanding of the scope andfunction of the Court's originaljurisdiction should be refined to extend to all cases involving state parties, both those satisfying the current diversity require- ment and those involving federal law. INTRODUCTION In trying the legitimacy of any controverted act, we ought not to bend the constitution to our theories, but ought to adapt our theories to the constitution.' -attributed to Henry Wheaton Nearly two hundred years after the Supreme Court's decision in Chisholm v. Georgia2 led to the ratification of the Eleventh Amendment,3 Copyright © 1994 California Law Review, Inc. t Associate Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law. Special thanks to Akhil Amar, Bill Davey, William Fletcher, Dan Meltzer, Laurie Mikva, John Nowak, Bob Pushaw, and Steve Ross and to the faculty workshop at the College of Law for helpful comments; to Lee Reichert and Guy Ward for research assistance; and to the Ross and Helen Workman Fund for research support. 1. A Federalist of 1789, The Dangers of the Union (No. 3), A~mucA (New York), July 23, 1821, at 1. 2. 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793). 3. The Eleventh Amendment provides, "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 82:555 4 this country continues to debate the suability of states in federal courtS. But while the debate it spawned over state immunity remains very much alive, the source of jurisdiction in Chisholm, the Court's original jurisdic- tion in state-party cases,5 has quietly slipped into obscurity. Today, the States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State." U.S. CoNsT. amend. XI. The Amendment became law in 1798, five years after the decision in Chisholm. For a brief and particularly well-balanced account of the ratification history, see William A. Fletcher, The Diversity Explanationof the Eleventh Amendment: A Reply to Critics, 56 U. CHI. L. REv. 1261, 1264-71 (1989). Other accounts appear in the sources cited infra notes 84, 91. 4. Supreme Court decisions push in two directions. The Court clings to a doctrine that extends state immunity beyond the text of the Eleventh Amendment. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890) (dismissing federal question claim brought by citizen of the defendant state, despite the Amendment's reference only to suits by citizens of another state); Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi. 292 U.S. 313 (1934) (dismissing action brought by foreign state despite the Amendment's reference only to suits brought by citizens of foreign states); Ex parte New York, 256 U.S. 490, 499-500 (1921) (dismissing action in admiralty despite the Amendment's reference only to suits in law and equity). Cf. Welch v. Texas Dep't of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468 (1987) (falling one vote short of overruling Hans). At the same time, however, the Court permits Congress to abrogate state immunity in certain circumstances. See Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1, 14 (1989) (holding that Congress may abrogate state sovereign immunity under the Commerce Clause where it unequivocally expresses its intent to do so); Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 242 (1985) (holding that Congress may abrogate state sovereign immunity under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment where it speaks with the requisite clarity). Similar differences divide the legal academy. Some observers agree with the Court's apparently atextual extension of state immunity. See William P. Marshall, The Diversity Theory of the Eleventh Amendment: A CriticalEvaluation, 102 HARv. L. REv. 1372 (1989) (arguing that critiques of Hans do not justify abandonment of its result). Others explain the Amendment as a limited repealer of diversity jurisdiction and call for change in current doctrine. The scholars who support a diversity explanation argue, in effect, that the Amendment restricts federal jurisdiction only in those diverse-party controversies that fail to implicate federal law and leaves intact other sources of federal jurisdiction, including those supplied by the federal question and admiralty grants. See infra note 91. Such a reading of the Amendment would overturn Hans and Er parte New York. Still others proffer a literal reading of the Eleventh Amendment that would also require doctrinal patchwork. They argue that the Eleventh Amendment curtails all federal judicial power over suits brought against the states by disfavored plaintiffs, including suits that rest on federal question and admiralty sources of jurisdiction. See Lawrence C. Marshall, Fighting the Words of the Eleventh Amendment, 102 HARV. L. Ruv. 1342 (1989); Calvin R. Massey, State Sovereignty and the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments, 56 U. CHI. L. Rev. 61 (1989). To such literal theorists, Hans was wrongly decided not because it reads the Eleventh Amendment to deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction over federal question claims but because it applies the Amendment to a suit brought by a citizen of the defendant state. For a summary of the essentially friendly debate between literalists and diversity theorists, see Fletcher, supra note 3,at 1276- 89. 5. Article IIIdeclares that "[in all Cases] in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction." U.S. CONsT. art. III,§ 2. The Judiciary Code provides that (a) The Supreme Court shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between two or more States. (b) The Supreme Court shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction of: (2)" All controversies between the United States and a State; (3) All actions or proceedings by a State against the citizens of another State or against aliens. 28 U.S.C. § 1251 (1988). As currently codified, therefore, the Court's original jurisdiction focuses on the identity of the litigants. It defines two favored litigants, the states themselves and the United States, and permits them to initiate actions on the Court's original docket. Other prospective plaintiffs, including citizens of the United States, aliens, and foreign nations, lack any statutory authority to invoke the Court's original jurisdiction. No grant of federal question jurisdiction appears in the statute. 1994] RETHINKING ORIGINAL JURISDICTION docket consists primarily of disputes between states over Court's original 7 the location of interstate boundaries6 and the allocation of interstate waters. Occasionally, cases of more than passing interest will appear.8 But, as Professor Gunther has explained, the Court's original jurisdiction is rarely invoked and is "even more rarely the source of significant constitutional interpretations." 9 It plays no substantial role in current debates over the scope of state sovereign immunity and the breadth of the Eleventh Amendment. 10 6. For recent examples of the invocation of the Court's original jurisdiction to resolve border disputes, see Louisiana v. Mississippi, 466 U.S. 96 (1984); California v. Nevada, 447 U.S. 125 (1980); Ohio v. Kentucky, 444 U.S. 335 (1980); California v. Arizona, 440 U.S. 59 (1979). Such jurisdiction was apparently first invoked in New Jersey v. New York, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 284 (1831) and was first definitively confirmed in Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 657 (1838). 7. For recent examples, see Colorado v. New Mexico, 459 U.S. 176 (1982), dismissed, 467 U.S. 310 (1984); Vermont v. New York, 417 U.S. 270 (1974). The leading case is Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U.S. 125 (1902). Other categories of original jurisdiction cases include disputes between states over burdens on interstate commerce, see, e.g., Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 112 S. Ct. 789 (1992); Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U.S. 553 (1923), and over the interpretation of interstate compacts, see Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U.S. 554 (1983), amended, 112 S. Ct. 291 (1991); Nebraska v. Iowa, 406 U.S. 117 (1972). See generally Felix Frankfurter & James M. Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution-A Study in Interstate Adjustments, 34 YALE L.J. 685 (1925) (discussing constitutional problems created by state compacts as adjudicated by the Supreme Court); David E. Engdahl, Construction of Interstate Compacts: A Questionable Federal Question, 51 VA. L. Rv. 987 (1965) (criticizing the law of the Union doctrine, on which certiorari review by the Supreme Court relies). In addition to these claims, the Court hears claims on its original docket in the nature of interpleaders between states that compete for rights of escheat, see Pennsylvania v. New York, 407 U.S. 206 (1972), supersededby statute as stated in Delaware v. New York, 113 S. Ct. 1550 (1993); Texas v. New Jersey, 379 U.S. 674 (1965), and for the right to impose tax liability on the estates of decedents who lived in more than one state, see California v.