Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association

Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 4, 2017 Decided May 14, 2018
Full case name	Philip D. Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, et al. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, et al.
Docket no.	16-476
Citations	584 U.S. 453 (more) 138 S. Ct. 1461; 200 L. Ed. 2d 854
Case history
Prior	61 F. Supp. 3d 488 (D.N.J. 2014); affirmed, 799 F.3d 259 (3d Cir. 2015); affirmed on rehearing en banc, 832 F.3d 389 (3d Cir. 2016); cert. granted, 137 S. Ct. 2327 (2017).
Questions presented
Does a federal statute that prohibits modification or repeal of state-law prohibitions on private conduct impermissibly commandeer the regulatory power of States in contravention of New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992)
Holding
The provision of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act that prohibits state authorization of schemes in sports gambling conflicts with the anticommandeering rule of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Case opinions
Majority	Alito, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Kagan, Gorsuch; Breyer (all but Part VI–B)
Concurrence	Thomas
Concur/dissent	Breyer
Dissent	Ginsburg, joined by Sotomayor; Breyer (in part)
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. X

Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 16-476, 584 U.S. 453 (2018) [138 S. Ct. 1461], was a United States Supreme Court case involving the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The issue was whether the U.S. federal government has the right to control state lawmaking. The State of New Jersey, represented here by Governor Philip D. Murphy, sought to have the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) overturned, allowing state-sponsored sports betting. The case, formerly titled Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association until Governor Chris Christie left office, was combined with NJ Thoroughbred Horsemen v. NCAA No. 16-477.

The pro-betting side characterized the federal government's position as commandeering, declaring federal laws that the states would have the responsibility to enforce.^[1][2] The anti-betting side relied on the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution to keep PASPA in force. It has been suggested that the outcome of this case is likely to be cited in future cases involving the legalization of marijuana, where a similar state–federal question exists.^[3][4]

On May 14, 2018, the Court reversed lower court findings, favoring New Jersey in deciding that PASPA violated the anticommandeering principle by a 7–2 vote, and declared the entire law unconstitutional by a 6–3 vote.