"Just read portions of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alabama v. North Carolina, issued Tuesday.

The case involved a challenge to North Carolina’s alleged failure to comply with a compact between states in the southeast over low-level radioactive waste. One issue was whether the states challenging North Carolina could sue through a Commission they had created to enforce, monitor, and administer the compact. The Court held that it was no 11th Amendment sovereign immunity problem for the Commission, technically a nonsovereign, to bootstrap onto the claims of the other states so long as they were the same claims, relying on Arizona v. California (1983).

Justice Scalia for the majority noted that Arizona had not been overruled, and that it was no problem for the Commission to sue on the backs of other states. North Carolina had noted that Oneida County v. Oneida Indian Nation (1985) may have undermined Arizona. In rejecting that argument, Scalia dropped a footnote, noting that “in Oneida, there was no sovereign plaintiff.” That would be the Oneida Indian Nation he was referring to as a “nonsovereign.”"

Get the Story:
How the Supreme Court Talks about Indian Tribes when They’re Not Looking (Turtle Talk 6/3)

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