Page:Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin.pdf/39

16 Unable to demonstrate that the statute’s terms clearly abrogate tribal immunity, respondent and the Court stress that §101(27) as a whole “exudes comprehensiveness.” That is obviously true but not obviously helpful. Really, the express inclusion of so many other types of sovereigns in the Bankruptcy Code’s abrogation provision only deepens the mystery why Tribes are nowhere mentioned. Normally, after all, when Congress includes so many items within “ ‘[an] associated group,’ ” we assume the omission of another means that it has been deliberately “ ‘exclude[d].’ ” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Echazabal, 536 U. S. 73, 80 (2002). Nor, for that matter, has this Court ever held that a statute’s general atmospherics can satisfy the clear-statement rule when the text itself comes up short.

The Court also invokes the Bankruptcy Code’s purposes. It contends that Congress designed the Code in part to “offe[r] debtors a fresh start,” that its provisions were intended to “sweep broadly,” and that petitioners’ view of the statute could “upen[d] the policy choices that the Code embodies.” In a similar vein, the Court wonders what reason Congress possibly could have had for excluding Tribes from its abrogation provision. Ibid. These are fair questions and concerns. Some of them I share. But they, too, have no place in a case like this one. For purposes of satisfying a clear-statement rule, attempts to “construe” §106 “in light of the policies underlying the Bankruptcy Code are unavailing.” Hoffman, 492 U. S., at 104 (plurality opinion). Perhaps Members of Congress had good reasons for failing to include Tribes in §101(27). Perhaps their decision reflected a measured political compromise. Or perhaps the issue of tribal immunity simply never came up. In all events, the result is the same. Absent some clear textual indication, there can be no abrogation.

Setting aside those policy concerns leaves the Court with a methodological one. It fears adopting my approach could