enter into such a negotiation. When the state refused, the Tribe filed suit, as allowed by the statute, against both the state of Florida and the governor, Lawton Chiles. The District Court declined to dismiss the case, but the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that the Eleventh Amendment barred the suit, and that the doctrine of Ex parte Young could not be used to force good faith negotiation. The tribe then filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, which granted the petition and docketed the case. While Florida prepared to argue the case, thirty-one additional states filed amicus briefs supporting Florida's position. A little less than two decades earlier, in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, the Court had held that Congress can abrogate state sovereign immunity pursuant to its powers under the Fourteenth Amendment, which clearly contemplates limiting the power of the states. In Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., the Court had held that Congress could also abrogate sovereign immunity under the Commerce Clause – but there was no majority in that decision. Justice Brennan was joined by three other justices in asserting that the Eleventh Amendment was nothing more than a reflection of common law sovereignty that could be swept aside by Congress; Justice Scalia was also joined by three other justices in taking the opposite view; and Justice Byron White wrote a separate opinion holding that Congress had such power, but stating his disagreement with Brennan's opinion (but not his own rationale). Now, the Supreme Court was once again presented with the question of whether Congress has the power to abrogate the sovereign immunity of the states, pursuant to the powers granted to it in Article One. Supreme Court Arguments Opinion of the Court The Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, struck down this abrogation as unconstitutional and further held that the doctrine of Ex parte Young does not apply in this situation. The Court began by repudiating the precedential value of Union Gas, noting that there was no single majority rationale, and characterizing it as a major departure from the 19th century case of Hans v. Louisiana, which had established the modern doctrine of sovereign immunity. The Court suggested that allowing Congress to abrogate sovereign immunity improperly expanded the jurisdiction of the federal courts beyond what Article Three of the U.S. Constitution permitted. The Eleventh Amendment, it contended, had further protected the states' sovereign immunity;