Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2001
Abstract
This article examines the Supreme Court's recent Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendment decisions constraining Congress's power to impose legal obligations on state governments. The context for this examination is the Court's consideration this Term of the constitutionality of the provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act authorizing individual suits against states by persons alleging they have been victimized by state disability discrimination. This article was written while the fate of the ADA case was unknown. But the Court issued its decision just as this article was going to press. A postscript has been added describing that decision and its implications. The article concludes that the Court's recent decisions, including the decision just issued respecting the ADA, represent a dramatic redefinition of both the Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendments, and a consequent diminution of congressional power to prevent discrimination by states against historically disadvantaged groups in our society.
Publication Citation
62 Ohio St. L.J. 31-107 (2001)
Scholarly Commons Citation
Gottesman, Michael H., "Disability, Federalism, and a Court with an Eccentric Mission" (2001). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 89.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/89