Edelman v. Jordan 415 U.S. 651 (1974)

• Author: Theodore Eisenberg
• Pages: 853

Page 853

This decision defines states' ELEVENTH AMENDMENT immunity from suit in federal court. Plaintiffs, alleging that Illinois welfare officials were unconstitutionally administering a welfare program financed by state and federal funds, sought the payments wrongfully withheld. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST, held the Eleventh Amendment to bar the request for retroactive relief but suggested that, as in EX PARTE YOUNG (1908), the Eleventh Amendment would not bar relief requiring the state to pay the costs of future constitutional compliance. In MILLIKEN V. BRADLEY (1977), the Court reconfirmed Edelman by requiring a state to pay the costs of future constitutional compliance.

Edelman also developed the principles regulating Congress's power to modify the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity. First, limiting earlier holdings such as Parden v. Terminal Railway (1964), Edelman held that mere participation by a state in a federal welfare program does not constitute a waiver of the state's Eleventh Amendment protection. It thus confirmed the narrow approach to waiver signaled by Employees v. Department of Public Health and Welfare (1973). Second, despite Congress's power to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity, Edelman stated that actions brought under SECTION 1983, TITLE 42, UNITED STATES CODE, are limited by the Eleventh Amendment. At the time, the state's protection from...