Legal Background
Kimel concerned the ability of Congress to override the states' "sovereign immunity" using its power under the Fourteenth Amendment. Sovereign immunity is a principle that originally comes from English law and referred to the immunity of the English monarch from suit. Sovereign immunity, according to the Supreme Court in Hans v. Louisiana (1890), normally prevents states from being sued by its own citizens in federal court. This bar against suit, the Court said, came from the Eleventh Amendment, even though the express terms of that amendment provide only that citizens of one state cannot sue another state.
In Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer (1976), however, the Court made an exception to that usual rule. Fitzpatrick held that Congress could use its power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment — which allows Congress to enforce the substantive terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, including the Equal Protection Clause, by positive legislation — to override state sovereign immunity. But in 1997, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Court limited congressional power to override state sovereign immunity using the Fourteenth Amendment, and for the first time required "congruence and proportionality" between the constitutional wrong and the congressionally enacted remedy to protect constitutional rights. Boerne held that it was the Court, and only the Court, that could determine what constituted a constitutional wrong, and that Congress could not permissibly increase the level of constitutional protection beyond that which the Court had recognized. Specifically, Boerne interpreted the scope of section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
The Court in Kimel based its decision in large part on Boerne. The importance of Kimel was the strict limits it placed on the ability of Congress to abrogate the states' sovereign immunity under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Read more about this topic: Kimel V. Florida Board Of Regents
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