Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/425

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 251 (1992)

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Opinion of the Court

Justice White’s opinion in the case referred, see 492 U. S., at 431, grew out of a long line of cases exploring the very narrow powers reserved to tribes over the conduct of nonIndians within their reservations. See Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544, 566 (1981) (citing cases). Even though a tribe’s “inherent sovereign powers. . . do not extend to the activities of nonmembers,. . . [a] tribe may. . . retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe.” Id., at 565–566 (emphasis added). Brendale and its reasoning are not applicable to the present cases, which involve not a proposed extension of a tribe’s inherent powers, but an asserted restriction of a State’s congressionally conferred powers. Moreover, as the Court observed recently in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S., at 215, n. 17, we have traditionally followed “a per se rule” “[i]n the special area of state taxation of Indian tribes and tribal members.” Though the rule has been most often applied to produce categorical prohibition of state taxation when there has been no “cession of jurisdiction or other federal [legislative permission],” Mescalero Apache Tribe, 411 U. S., at 148, we think it also applies to produce categorical allowance of state taxation when it has in fact been authorized by Congress. “Either Congress intended to pre-empt the state taxing authority or it did not. Balancing of interests is not the appropriate gauge for determining validity since it is that very balancing which we have reserved to Congress.” Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 177 (1980) (opinion of Rehnquist, J.). If the Ninth Circuit’s Brendale test were the law, litigation would surely engulf the States’ annual assessment and taxation process, with the validity of each levy dependent upon a multiplicity of factors that vary from year to year,