Article III, Section 2, Clause 1:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State, between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

Centering its attention upon the elements of a case or controversy, the Court has declined jurisdiction in certain circumstances. For example, in Alabama v. Arizona,1 where Alabama sought to enjoin nineteen states from regulating or prohibiting the sale of convict-made goods, the Court stated that jurisdiction of suits between states will be exercised only when absolutely necessary.2 The Court explained that the equity requirements in a suit between states are more exacting than in a suit between private persons, and that a plaintiff state asking leave to sue another state must show the threatened injury to be of great magnitude and imminent.3 The Court further explained that the burden on the plaintiff state to establish all the elements of a case is greater than the burden generally required by a plaintiff seeking an injunction in cases between private parties.4

Pursuing a similar line of reasoning, the Court declined to take jurisdiction of a suit brought by Massachusetts against Missouri and certain of its citizens to prevent Missouri from levying inheritance taxes upon intangibles held in trust in Missouri by resident trustees.5 In holding that the complaint presented no justiciable controversy, the Court declared that, to constitute such a controversy, the complainant state must show that it “has suffered a wrong through the action of the other State, furnishing ground for judicial redress, or is asserting a right against the other State which is susceptible of judicial enforcement according to . . . the common law or equity systems of jurisprudence.” 6 The fact that the trust property was sufficient to satisfy the claims of both states and that recovery by either would not impair any rights of the other distinguished the case from Texas v. Florida,7 where the Court held the contrary. Furthermore, the Missouri statute providing for reciprocal privileges in levying inheritance taxes did not confer upon Massachusetts any contractual right.8 The Court then proceeded to reiterate its earlier rule that a state may not invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court for the benefit of its residents or to enforce the individual rights of its citizens.9 Moreover, the Court held that Massachusetts could not invoke the original jurisdiction of the Court by making citizens of Missouri parties to a suit that was not otherwise maintainable.10 Accordingly, Massachusetts was held to have an adequate remedy in Missouri’s courts or in a federal district court in Missouri.11

In 2020, the Supreme Court declined to allow Texas to file a bill of complaint in which Texas alleged that four states allowed “material illegality” 12 in the 2020 general elections held in their states.13 Texas argued that alleged flaws in voting processes in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin affected an “outcome determinative” number of votes in the 2020 presidential election.14 The Supreme Court denied Texas’s motion under the rationale that Texas lacked standing because it did not have a “judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.” 15

Footnotes

1

291 U.S. 286 (1934). The Court has been loath to permit filings of original actions where the parties might be able to resolve their disputes in other courts, even in cases in which the jurisdiction over the particular dispute is exclusively original. Arizona v. New Mexico, 425 U.S. 794 (1976) (dispute subject of state court case brought by private parties); California v. West Virginia, 454 U.S. 1027 (1981). But in Mississippi v. Louisiana, 506 U.S. 73 (1992), the Court’s reluctance to exercise original jurisdiction ran afoul of the “uncompromising language” of 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a) giving the Court “original and exclusive jurisdiction” of these kinds of suits.

2

Alabama v. Arizona, 291 U.S. 286, 291 (1934).

3

Id. at 292.

4

Id.

5

Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U.S. 1, 20 (1939).

6

Id. at 15–16 (citing Florida v. Mellon, 273 U.S. 12 (1927)).

7

306 U.S. 398 (1939).

8

See id. at 16–17.

9

Massachusetts, 308 U.S. at 17 (citing Oklahoma v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry., 220 U.S. 277, 286 (1911) and Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U.S. 387, 394 (1938)). See also New Hampshire v. Louisiana and New York v. Louisiana, 108 U.S. 76 (1883), which held that a state cannot bring a suit on behalf of its citizens to collect on bonds issued by another state, and Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U.S. 1 (1900), which held that a state cannot sue another to prevent maladministration of quarantine laws.

10

Massachusetts, 308 U.S. at 17, 19.

11

See id. at 19–20.

12

Mot. for Leave to File Bill of Complaint, Texas v. Pennsylvania at 2, No. 155, Orig. (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020).

13

Order, Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 155, Orig. (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020).

14

Mot. for Leave, supra note 12, at 2.

15

Order, supra note 13.