Supreme Court of the United States

“ Alternatively, Congress could identify Tribes by description—for instance, “any other government that operates, in whole or in part, within the territorial bounds of the United States.” See 33 F. 4th, at 622 (Barron, C. J., dissenting) . Alternatively still, Congress could abrogate all sovereign immunity through some unequivocal statement to that effect—using, for example, the Court’s own formulation, “any and every government.” Ante, at 4. The only thing Congress cannot do is use “oblique or elliptical language” to “supply a clear statement.” ”

“ Really, the express inclusion of so many other types of sovereigns in the Bankruptcy Code’s abrogation provision only deepens the mystery why Tribes are nowhere mentioned. Normally, after all, when Congress includes so many items within “ ‘ [an] associated group,’ ” we assume the omission of another means that it has been deliberately “ ‘exclude [d] .’ ” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Echazabal, 536 U. S. 73, 80 (2002) . Nor, for that matter, has this Court ever held that a statute’s general atmospherics can satisfy the clear-statement rule when the text itself comes up short. ”

“ To abrogate sovereign immunity unambiguously, “Congress need not state its intent in any particular way.” Cooper, 566 U. S., at 291. Nor need Congress “make its clear statement in a single [statutory] section.” Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 76 (2000) . The clear-statement question is simply whether, upon applying “traditional” tools of statutory interpretation, Congress’s abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity is “clearly discernable” from the statute itself. ”

“ When a tribe engages in off-reservation commercial activity, “it necessarily acts within the territory of a sovereign State.” Id., at 818. Thus, to grant tribes a unique and unjustified immunity from both federal and state jurisdiction for commercial acts committed on a State’s territory “aggravate [s] relationships between States and tribes throughout the country.” Id., at 818–819. Accordingly, any common-law immunity that petitioners possess cannot support their claim to immunity in federal court for their off-reservation commercial conduct. ”

“ More fundamentally, even granting respondent these examples would not do him any good. Just think of the balancing task we would face. On one side of the scale, we would have a couple of scattered quotes (cherry-picked from over two centuries of Indian-law jurisprudence) bandying about the word “domestic” when describing certain features of Tribes. On the other side of the scale, we would have the text and history of the Constitution, supported by more (and better) examples of this Court’s jurisprudence fashioning rules of law treating Tribes as sui generis. ”

“ Our conclusion that all government creditors are subject to abrogation under §106 (a) brings one remaining question to the fore—whether federally recognized tribes qualify as governments. Petitioners do not seriously dispute that federally recognized tribes are governments, and for good reason. Federally recognized tribes exercise uniquely governmental functions: “They have power to make their own substantive law in internal matters, and to enforce that law in their own forums.” ”

“ In order to avoid state payday loan regulation, “payday lenders ... often arrange to share fees or profits with tribes so they can use tribal immunity as a shield for conduct of questionable legality.” Ibid. Petitioners here rely on tribal immunity to avoid not only state but also federal payday loan regulation. They further seek to leverage this immunity to pursue respondent on his debt while other creditors’ collection efforts are stayed. Tribal immunity thus creates a pathway to circumvent vast swaths of both state and federal laws. ”

“ Petitioner Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians (the Band) is a federally recognized Tribe that wholly owns several business entities. In 2019, one of the Band’s businesses, Lendgreen, allowed respondent Brian Coughlin to borrow $1,100 in the form of a high-interest, short-term loan. But Coughlin filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy before he fully repaid the loan.
Under the Bankruptcy Code, Coughlin’s filing of the bankruptcy petition triggered an automatic stay against further collection efforts by creditors, including Lendgreen. ”

“ First, the reader must treat the words “foreign or domestic” as a single, undifferentiated clause (rather than as a disjunctive grouping of descriptors) . Second, the reader must take that undifferentiated clause to mean “anywhere and everywhere.” Each move is plausible; neither is “clear.” ”

“ For another, whereas the pairing of “foreign” and “domestic” often covers the waterfront, see supra, at 6, the dissent’s hypothetical pairings do not have that same effect. And unlike animals (which need not be small or doglike) or ice creams (which need not be chocolate or vanilla) , every government must be foreign or domestic to some degree ”

“ Governments do not normally deal with politically “domestic” authorities in that manner. See, e.g., Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U. S. 556, 572 (1883) (linking Tribes’ “ ‘capacity to make treaties’ ” with their unique “ ‘semi-independent’ ” status, allowing them to control “ ‘their domestic government’ ” (quoting United States v. Joseph, 94 U. S. 614, 617 (1877) ) ) ; The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. 616, 622 (1871) (Bradley, J., dissenting) (similar) .
This Court’s earliest Indian-law jurisprudence offers more evidence along the same lines. ”

“ See also infra, at 12–14. ↑ Petitioners rely, for instance, on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, which authorizes a “person” to “commence a civil action.” 42 U. S. C. §6972 (a) . “Person” is defined under that statute to include a “municipality,” which is in turn defined to encompass “a city, town, borough, county, parish, district, or other public body created by or pursuant to State law ... or an Indian tribe or authorized tribal organization.” §§6903 (13) , (15) ; see also Brief for Petitioners 25 (citing similar provisions) . ”