Page:Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin.pdf/7

4 to federally recognized tribes no less than other defendants with sovereign immunity. Ibid. We have held that tribes possess the “common-law immunity from suit traditionally enjoyed by sovereign powers.” Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 58 (1978). Our cases have thus repeatedly emphasized that tribal sovereign immunity, absent a clear statement of congressional intent to the contrary, is the “baseline position.” Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U. S. 782, 790 (2014).

This clear-statement rule is a demanding standard. If “there is a plausible interpretation of the statute” that preserves sovereign immunity, Congress has not unambiguously expressed the requisite intent. FAA v. Cooper, 566 U. S. 284, 290 (2012); accord, United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 37 (1992).

The rule is not a magic-words requirement, however. To abrogate sovereign immunity unambiguously, “Congress need not state its intent in any particular way.” Cooper, 566 U. S., at 291. Nor need Congress “make its clear statement in a single [statutory] section.” Kimel v. ''Florida Bd. of Regents'', 528 U. S. 62, 76 (2000). The clear-statement question is simply whether, upon applying “traditional” tools of statutory interpretation, Congress’s abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity is “clearly discernable” from the statute itself. Cooper, 566 U. S., at 291.

We conclude that the Bankruptcy Code unequivocally abrogates the sovereign immunity of any and every government that possesses the power to assert such immunity. Federally recognized tribes undeniably fit that description; therefore, the Code’s abrogation provision plainly applies to them as well.