Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/367

 502us1$16L 08-21-96 15:27:13 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 197 (1991)

209

O’Connor, J., dissenting

case and the latter as a constitutional case. The clear statement rule, the Court says, was required in Welch because the Eleventh Amendment was implicated. In Will, by contrast, use of the clear statement rule was somewhat discretionary, because the issue in that case was a question of statutory interpretation in which the Constitution was not implicated. See ante, at 205–207. Because this case involves state sovereign immunity in state court, not federal court, and the Eleventh Amendment does not by its terms apply, the Court holds that the clear statement rule in this “nonconstitutional” context can be trumped by stare decisis. The Court’s distinction is untenable. The clear statement rule is not a mere canon of statutory interpretation. Instead, it derives from the Constitution itself. The rule protects the balance of power between the States and the Federal Government struck by the Constitution. Although the Eleventh Amendment spells out one aspect of that balance of power, the principle of federalism underlying the Amendment pervades the constitutional structure: The Constitution gives Congress only limited power to govern the Nation; the States retain power to govern locally. See Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U. S. 223, 227 (1989) (“[A]brogation of sovereign immunity upsets ‘the fundamental constitutional balance between the Federal Government and the States,’ . . . placing a considerable strain on ‘[t]he principles of federalism that inform Eleventh Amendment’ ”) (quoting Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, supra, at 238, and Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 100 (1984)). Recognizing this basic truth about our governmental structure under the Constitution, we have been wary of extending the effect of congressional enactments into areas traditionally governed by the States, unless Congress has directed us to do so by an unmistakably clear statement. Indeed, in the cases in which we have employed the clear statement rule