Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association

Case Year: 2018

Case Ruling: 7-2

Opinion Justice: Alito

FACTS

 

At the beginning of the twentieth century gambling was generally prohibited throughout the United States. Over the years public opinion and public policy gradually evolved. Many states legalized pari-mutuel betting, casinos, or state lotteries. More controversial, however, was the practice of betting on sporting events. Seeing potential dangers associated with this activity, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) which made it unlawful for a state to authorize, operate, or sponsor gambling on competitive sporting events. The law allowed the U.S. attorney general, as well as professional and amateur sports organizations, to take civil action against any state that violated the statute.

Special PASPA provisions exempted four states where sports betting was permitted at the time the law was passed and allowed New Jersey to initiate such wagering in Atlantic City if the state did so within one year of the act’s effective date. New Jersey initially declined to exercise that option, retaining its long-standing ban on sports gambling. Illegal wagering, however, thrived involving massive amounts of money all unregulated and untaxed by the state. In response, state voters in 2011 approved a state constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to authorize regulated wagering on competitive athletics. The legislature passed such an act in 2012 and revised it in 2014. The final version was based on a repeal of the previous state law banning sports betting. The law was challenged by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League as a violation of PASPA. These organizations traditionally opposed gambling on games as potentially dangerous to the integrity of their sports. The federal government supported their challenge. New Jersey defended its actions, attacking PASPA as unconstitutionally depriving the state of its sovereign power to repeal previously enacted laws. The federal district and appeals courts ruled in favor of the sports organizations and upheld PASPA. New Jersey requested Supreme Court review.

The excerpt that appears below deals exclusively with the major federalism question of whether PASPA violates principles of state sovereignty. Also at issue in the case was the more technical question of severability. That is, when a provision of a statue is declared unconstitutional, do the surviving provisions remain in force, or is the invalidated provision so central to the statute that the unaffected provisions can no longer stand. The concurring and dissenting opinions speak primarily to the severability issue and, therefore, are not excerpted here.

 

OPINION

 

Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court

The State of New Jersey wants to legalize sports gambling at casinos and horseracing tracks, but a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, generally makes it unlawful for a State to “authorize” sports gambling schemes. We must decide whether this provision is compatible with the system of “dual sovereignty” embodied in the Constitution …

The anticommandeering doctrine may sound arcane, but it is simply the expression of a fundamental structural decision incorporated into the Constitution, i.e., the decision to withhold from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the States. When the original States declared their independence, they claimed the powers inherent in sovereignty—in the words of the Declaration of Independence, the authority “to do all … Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” The Constitution limited but did not abolish the sovereign powers of the States, which retained “a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.” The Federalist No. 39. Thus, both the Federal Government and the States wield sovereign powers, and that is why our system of government is said to be one of “dual sovereignty.” Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991).

The Constitution limits state sovereignty in several ways. It directly prohibits the States from exercising some attributes of sovereignty. See, e.g., Art. I, §10. Some grants of power to the Federal Government have been held to impose implicit restrictions on the States. And the Constitution indirectly restricts the States by granting certain legislative powers to Congress, see Art. I, §8, while providing in the Supremacy Clause that federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land … any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding,” Art. VI, cl. 2. This means that when federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails and state law is preempted.

The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable, but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers on Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms. And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The anticommandeering doctrine simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority.

Although the anticommandeering principle is simple and basic, it did not emerge in our cases until relatively recently, when Congress attempted in a few isolated instances to extend its authority in unprecedented ways. The pioneering case was New York v. United States (1992), which concerned a federal law that required a State, under certain circumstances, either to “take title” to low-level radioactive waste or to “regulat[e] according to the instructions of Congress.” In enacting this provision, Congress issued orders to either the legislative or executive branch of state government (depending on the branch authorized by state law to take the actions demanded). Either way, the Court held, the provision was unconstitutional because “the Constitution does not empower Congress to subject state governments to this type of instruction.”

Justice O’Connor’s opinion for the Court traced this rule to the basic structure of government established under the Constitution. The Constitution, she noted, “confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States.” …

As to what this structure means with regard to Congress’s authority to control state legislatures, New York was clear and emphatic. The opinion recalled that “no Member of the Court ha[d] ever suggested” that even “a particularly strong federal interest” “would enable Congress to command a state government to enact state regulation.” “We have always understood that even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.” “Congress may not simply ‘commandee[r] the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.’ “Where a federal interest is sufficiently strong to cause Congress to legislate, it must do so directly; it may not conscript state governments as its agents.”

Five years after New York, the Court applied the same principles to a federal statute requiring state and local law enforcement officers to perform background checks and related tasks in connection with applications for handgun licenses. Printz [v. United States]. Holding this provision unconstitutional, the Court put the point succinctly: “The Federal Government” may not “command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.” This rule applies, Printz held, not only to state officers with policymaking responsibility but also to those assigned more mundane tasks.

Our opinions in New York and Printz explained why adherence to the anticommandeering principle is important. Without attempting a complete survey, we mention several reasons that are significant here.

First, the rule serves as “one of the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty.” “The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities.” New York. “To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals.”  “ [A] healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government [reduces] the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.”

Second, the anticommandeering rule promotes political accountability. When Congress itself regulates, the responsibility for the benefits and burdens of the regulation is apparent. Voters who like or dislike the effects of the regulation know who to credit or blame. By contrast, if a State imposes regulations only because it has been commanded to do so by Congress, responsibility is blurred.

Third, the anticommandeering principle prevents Congress from shifting the costs of regulation to the States …

The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling—violates the anticommandeering rule. That provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do … [S]tate legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress. It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.

Neither respondents nor the United States contends that Congress can compel a State to enact legislation, but they say that prohibiting a State from enacting new laws is another matter. Noting that the laws challenged in New York and Printz “told states what they must do instead of what they must not do,” respondents contend that commandeering occurs “only when Congress goes beyond precluding state action and affirmatively commands it.”

This distinction is empty. It was a matter of happenstance that the laws challenged in New York and Printz commanded “affirmative” action as opposed to imposing a prohibition. The basic principle—that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures—applies in either event.

Here is an illustration. PASPA includes an exemption for States that permitted sports betting at the time of enactment, but suppose Congress did not adopt such an exemption. Suppose Congress ordered States with legalized sports betting to take the affirmative step of criminalizing that activity and ordered the remaining States to retain their laws prohibiting sports betting. There is no good reason why the former would intrude more deeply on state sovereignty than the latter.

Respondents and the United States claim that prior decisions of this Court show that PASPA’s anti-authorization provision is constitutional, but they misread those cases. In none of them did we uphold the constitutionality of a federal statute that commanded state legislatures to enact or refrain from enacting state law …

The legalization of sports gambling is a controversial subject. Supporters argue that legalization will produce revenue for the States and critically weaken illegal sports betting operations, which are often run by organized crime. Opponents contend that legalizing sports gambling will hook the young on gambling, encourage people of modest means to squander their savings and earnings, and corrupt professional and college sports.

The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make. Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA “regulate[s] state governments’ regulation” of their citizens. The Constitution gives Congress no such power.

The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.