Page:Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin.pdf/40

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Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023)
17

Gorsuch, J., dissenting

transmute our clear-statement rule into some sort of magic-words test. Ante, at 10. I do not see how it could. Congress could identify Tribes in any number of unmistakable ways—“Indians,” “Native Americans,” “Indigenous Peoples,” or even (as we have seen) “domestic dependent nations.” Congress has had no trouble using language like that in plenty of other statutory contexts. See, e.g., 7 U. S. C. §8310; 42 U. S. C. §8802(17); 49 U. S. C. §5121(g). 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.” West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (slip op., at 13) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Because that is—at best—what the Bankruptcy Code provides, I respectfully dissent.