Schedule Registration Housing

Saturday, January 8, 2000 1:30-3:15 p.m.	Marriott Ballroom Salon I Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Lobby Level
Section on Federal Courts
Thomas D. Rowe, Jr., Duke University, Chair
James E. Pfander, University of Illinois, Program Chair

Federal Supremacy and State Sovereign Immunity after Alden v. Maine, College Savings Bank and Florida Prepaid

(Program to be published in Notre Dame Law Review)

Moderator:
	James E. Pfander, University of Illinois
Speakers:
	The Honorable William A. Fletcher, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, San Francisco, California Vicki C. Jackson, Georgetown University John C. Jeffries, Jr., University of Virginia Carlos Manuel Vazquez, Georgetown University Ann Woolhandler, Tulane University

On the last day of the 1998 Term, the Supreme Court held that the states enjoy a constitutional immunity from suit that limits Congress's power to subject them to private suits for money damages. Addressing alleged state violations of federal commercial laws that applied to both state and private actors, the Court rejected three proposed sources of congressional remedial authority. Alden v. Maine denied Congress the power to provide for suits against states in their own courts; College Savings Bank foreclosed congressional reliance upon the abrogation-like doctrine of constructive waiver of immunity; and Florida Prepaid narrowed the scope of Congress's power to abrogate state immunity under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This year's panelists and discussants will consider what these decisions portend for the enforcement of federal rights against the states and for larger questions of constitutional federalism. The Court's cert grant in a qui tam case, the Alden dissent's pointed refusal to accede to the majority's view, and the ongoing debate over the scope of Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment all suggest that we have yet to hear the last word.

Business Meeting at Program Conclusion

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