American Civil Liberties Union v. Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline

MEMORANDUM *

Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 , 28 S.Ct. 441 , 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), established that the Eleventh Amendment does not preclude suits for injunctive relief against state officers violating federal law. The Ex parte Young exception “is based in part on the premise that sovereign immunity bars relief against States and their officers in both state and federal courts, and that certain suits for declaratory or injunctive relief against state officers must therefore be permitted if the Constitution is to re *934 main the supreme law of the land.” Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 747 , 119 S.Ct. 2240 , 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999) (emphasis added).

The plaintiffs-appellants have brought suit against the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, but have not named the individual commission members in their complaint. Ex parte Young, however, only provides an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity when suit is brought against the officers themselves, rather than against the state or its agencies. See Young, 209 U.S. at 152 , 28 S.Ct. 441 (noting that courts may “restrain a state officer from executing an unconstitutional statute of the state” (emphasis added)); see also Pennhurst…