So what’s the deal with the Supremacy Clause? Well, only four Justices in dissent were willing to say anything about it, and whether it creates a private cause of action. Here is my analysis of Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern Cal., Inc.

The majority, by Breyer, for Kennedy, GInsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. The dissent by the Chief, joined by Scalia, Thomas, and Alito.

As a threshold matter, the majority and dissent don’t seem to even agree about what the case is about!

Breyer said:

We granted certiorari in these cases to decide whether Medicaid providers and recipients may maintain a cause of action under the Supremacy Clause to enforce a federal Medicaid law—a federal law that, in their view, conflicts with (and pre-empts) state Medicaid statutes that reduce payments to providers.

The Chief disagreed, noting:

During briefing and argument in this case, the parties have debated broad questions, such as whether and when constitutional provisions as a general matter are directly enforceable. It is not necessary to consider these larger issues. It is not even necessary to decide whether the Supremacy Clause can ever provide a private cause of action. The question presented in the certiorari petitions is narrow: “Whether Medicaid recipients and providers may maintain a cause of action under the Supremacy Clause to enforce [§30(A)] by asserting that the provision preempts a state law reducing reimbursement rates.” To decide this case, it is enough to conclude that the Suprem- acy Clause does not provide a cause of action to enforce the requirements of §30(A) when Congress, in establishing those requirements, elected not to provide such a cause of action in the statute itself.

In any event, both groups seem to concede that the facts have changed:

Since we granted certiorari, how- ever, the relevant circumstances have changed. The fed- eral agency in charge of administering Medicaid, the Cen- ters for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has now approved the state statutes as consistent with the federal law. In light of the changed circumstances, we believe that the question before us now is whether, once the agen- cy has approved the state statutes, groups of Medicaid providers and beneficiaries may still maintain a Suprem- acy Clause action asserting that the state statutes are inconsistent with the federal Medicaid law. For the rea- sons set forth below, we vacate the Ninth Circuit’s judg- ments and remand these cases for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Whenever a majority opinion on a big case is 8 pages, you know it’s a duck!

So here’s how Breyer characterizes the 9th Circuit’s seven opinions:

The decisions ultimately affirmed or ordered preliminary injunctions that prevented the State from im- plementing its statutes. They (1) held that the Medi- caid providers and beneficiaries could directly bring an action based on the Supremacy Clause; (2) essentially accepted the claim that the State had not demonstrated that its Medicaid plan, as amended, would provide suffi- cient services; (3) held that the amendments consequently conflicted with the statutory provision we have quoted; and (4) held that, given the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the federal statute must prevail. That is to say, the federal statute pre-empted the State’s new laws.

But the posture changed after cert was granted.

The cases were in this posture when we granted certiorari to decide whether respondents could mount a Supremacy Clause challenge to the state statutes and obtain a court injunc- tion preventing California from implementing its statutes.

About a month after we heard oral argument, the feder- al agency reversed course and approved several of Califor- nia’s statutory amendments to its plan

So why wasn’t this case DIG’D?

Anyway, Breyer seems to think an APA challenge is better than this Supremacy Clause challenge:

Nor have the parties suggested reasons why, once the agency has taken final action, a court should reach a different result in a case like this one, depending upon whether the case proceeds in a Supremacy Clause action rather than under the APA for review of an agency deci- sion. Indeed, to permit a difference in result here would subject the States to conflicting interpretations of federal law by several different courts (and the agency), thereby threatening to defeat the uniformity that Congress in- tended by centralizing administration of the federal pro- gram in the agency and to make superfluous or to under- mine traditional APA review.

…

If the two kinds of actions should reach the same result, the Supremacy Clause challenge is at best redundant. And to permit the continuation of the action in that form would seem to be inefficient, for the agency is not a participant in the pend- ing litigation below, litigation that will decide whether the agency-approved state rates violate the federal statute.

It is so ordered.

And here’s the end. Total gobbledygook, even for Breyer:

In the present posture of these cases, we do not address whether the Ninth Circuit properly recognized a Suprem- acy Clause action to enforce this federal statute before the agency took final action. To decide whether these cases may proceed directly under the Supremacy Clause now that the agency has acted, it will be necessary to take account, in light of the proceedings that have already taken place, of at least the matters we have set forth above. It must be recognized, furthermore, that the par- ties have not fully argued this question. Thus, it may be that not all of the considerations that may bear upon the proper resolution of the issue have been presented in the briefs to this Court or in the arguments addressed to and considered by the Court of Appeals. Given the complexity of these cases, rather than ordering reargument, we va- cate the Ninth Circuit’s judgments and remand the cases, thereby permitting the parties to argue the matter before that Circuit in the first instance.

I have never read a Supreme Court opinion that said less. Breyer should have added an LOLCAT or something to the end.

Robert’s dissent has some good stuff on the Supremacy Clause:

To decide this case, it is enough to conclude that the Suprem- acy Clause does not provide a cause of action to enforce the requirements of §30(A) when Congress, in establishing those requirements, elected not to provide such a cause of action in the statute itself.

The Supremacy Clause operates differently than other constitutional provisions. For example, if Congress says in a law that certain provisions do not give rise to a taking without just compensation, that obviously does not resolve a claim under the Takings Clause that they do. The Su- premacy Clause, on the other hand, is “not a source of any federal rights.” Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U. S. 600, 613 (1979); accord, Dennis v. Higgins, 498 U. S. 439, 450 (1991) (contrasting, in this regard, the Supremacy Clause and the Commerce Clause). The purpose of the Supremacy Clause is instead to ensure  that, in a conflict with state law, whatever Congress says goes. See The Federalist, No. 33, p. 205 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (the Supremacy Clause “only declares a truth which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government”).

Thus, if Congress does not intend for a statute to supply a cause of action for its enforcement, it makes no sense to claim that the Supremacy Clause itself must provide one. Saying that there is a private right of action under the Supremacy Clause would substantively change the federal rule established by Congress in the Medicaid Act. That is not a proper role for the Supremacy Clause, which simply ensures that the rule established by Congress controls.

Indeed, to say that there is a federal statutory right enforceable under the Supremacy Clause, when there is no such right under the pertinent statute itself, would effect a complete end-run around this Court’s implied right of action and 42 U. S. C. §1983 jurisprudence. We have em- phasized that “where the text and structure of a statute provide no indication that Congress intends to create new individual rights, there is no basis for a private suit, whether under §1983 or under an implied right of action.” Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U. S. 273, 286 (2002). This body of law would serve no purpose if a plaintiff could overcome the absence of a statutory right of action simply by invoking a right of action under the Supremacy Clause to the exact same effect.