In his new book, according to the National Law Journal’s Marcia Coyle, Justice Stevens levels strong criticism at the Supreme Court’s decision in Seminole Tribe v. Florida:
The tenor of the Court’s deliberations changed immediately when William Rehnquist became chief justice, according to Stevens. Rehnquist, he writes, was an impartial presiding officer and meticulous in noting the justices’ different positions on issues in each argued case. But Stevens levels some of the book’s sharpest criticism on Rehnquist’s decisions involving state sovereign immunity. Stevens considers the first in a line of 11th Amendment rulings — Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida — one of the Court’s worst rulings in his nearly 35 years. In an interview withThe National Law Journal, he explained that sovereign immunity is a “doctrine of injustice.”
And he calls the retirement of Thurgood Marshall, the “most significant judicial event” of Rehnquist’s tenure as chief, not only because of Marshall’s contributions to the Court’s conference but because of the changes in the Court’s jurisprudence attributable to the votes of his successor, Clarence Thomas.
Turtle Talk 
Justice Stevens was consistent in his negative views of soveriegn immunity, calling its application “unjust” in connection with a tribal soveriengn immunity case – Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma v. Manufacturing Technologies, 523 US 751 (1998). “Governments, like individuals, should pay their debts and should be held accountable for their unlawful, injurious conduct.”
I tend to agree with Justice Stevens on federal and state sovereignty, but I have yet to see any Indian tribe anywhere broadly consent to federal and state court jurisdiction over their interests. Yes, even tribal governments should pay their debts … and they do, in tribal court. And for those that don’t, I fail to see how assertions of federal or state power over tribes are anything more than bald assertions of power over tribes just because they’re tribes.
I fail to see a principled distinction here. If it is appropriate to decry assertions of state and federal soveriegn immunity, and implicitly call for its waiver or removal, how is it appropriate to call the same position a power grab simply becasue it is applied to another soveriegn – a tribe? I might see an argument that Seminole left the tribe without any forum while Kiowa left the defendant with tribal court (perhaps). But your comment suggests that, even if no tribal forum existed, any crticism of that outcome as produced by an assertion of tribal soveriegn immunity is a naked power grab and not worth considering. At least Stevens was consistent in his approach.
You completely missed the point Mike.
Agreed (w/ MLMF)