New Jersey enacted two laws that authorized certain sports betting. Five sports leagues sued under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) to stop the laws from taking effect. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the leagues and issued a permanent injunction. The Third Circuit affirmed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The State of New Jersey wants to legalize sports gambling at casinos and horseracing tracks, but a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, generally makes it unlawful for a State to “authorize” sports gambling schemes. We must decide whether this provision is compatible with the system of “dual sovereignty” embodied in the Constitution.

. . . Americans have never been of one mind about gambling, and attitudes have swung back and forth. By the end of the 19th century, gambling was largely banned throughout the country, but beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, laws prohibiting gambling were gradually loosened.

New Jersey’s experience is illustrative. In 1897, New Jersey adopted a constitutional amendment that barred all gambling in the State. But during the Depression, the State permitted parimutuel betting on horse races as a way of increasing state revenue, and in 1953, churches and other nonprofit organizations were allowed to host bingo games. In 1970, New Jersey became the third State to run a state lottery, and within five years, 10 other States followed suit.

By the 1960s, Atlantic City, “once the most fashionable resort of the Atlantic Coast,” had fallen on hard times, and casino gambling came to be seen as a way to revitalize the city. In 1974, a referendum on statewide legalization failed, but two years later, voters approved a narrower measure allowing casino gambling in Atlantic City alone. At that time, Nevada was the only other State with legal casinos, and thus for a while the Atlantic City casinos had an east coast monopoly.

“With 60 million people living within a one-tank car trip away,”

Atlantic City became “the most popular tourist destination in the United States.” But that favorable situation eventually came to an end.

. . . Sports gambling, however, has long had strong opposition.

Opponents argue that it is particularly addictive and especially attractive to young people with a strong interest in sports, and in the past gamblers corrupted and seriously damaged the reputation of professional and amateur sports.

Apprehensive about the potential effects of sports gambling, professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) long opposed legalization. . .

Opponents of sports gambling turned to the legislation now before us, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act

(PASPA).

. . . PASPA’s most important provision, part of which is directly at issue in these cases, makes it “unlawful” for a State or any of its subdivisions “to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact . . . a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based . . . on” competitive sporting events. § 3702(1) . . .

PASPA does not make sports gambling a federal crime

(and thus was not anticipated to impose a significant law enforcement burden on the Federal Government). Instead, PASPA allows the Attorney General, as well as professional and amateur sports organizations, to bring civil actions to enjoin violations. § 3703.

. . . The anticommandeering doctrine may sound arcane, but it is simply the expression of a fundamental structural decision incorporated into the Constitution, i.e., the decision to withhold from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the States . . . The Constitution limited but did not abolish the sovereign powers of the States, which retained “a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.” Thus, both the Federal Government and the States wield sovereign powers, and that is why our system of government is said to be one of “dual sovereignty.”. . The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable, but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers on Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms. And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The anticommandeering doctrine simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority.

. . . The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling—violates the anticommandeering rule. That provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. State legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress.

It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.

. . . The legalization of sports gambling is a controversial subject. Supporters argue that legalization will produce revenue for the States and critically weaken illegal sports betting operations, which are often run by organized crime.
Opponents contend that legalizing sports gambling will hook the young on gambling, encourage people of modest means to squander their savings and earnings, and corrupt professional and college sports. The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make. Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA “regulate [s] state governments’ regulation” of their citizens. The Constitution gives Congress no such power. The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.

Questions:-

1. Explain the anticommandeering doctrine. How might it affect states’ decisions to legalize marijuana?
2. To what extent will this case motivate other states, besides New Jersey, to legalize sports betting?