Waivers of State Sovereign Immunity and the Ideology of the Eleventh Amendment

States normally enjoy immunity from suit by private parties, but they may waive this immunity. The Supreme Court\u27s steady contraction of other exceptions to the rule of state sovereign immunity has renewed interest in the previously little-discussed possibilities of waiver. This article explores the boundary of waiver doctrine. This article shows that prior to 1945, the Court applied a sensible doctrine of waiver that balanced the interests of states with those of private parties and the federal judicial system. However, beginning in 1945, the traditional rules concerning waiver of state sovereign immunity got swept away by the overall ideological tide of state sovereign immunity doctrine. The immunity became so important that it overrode all other considerations, including the need to run the federal judicial system in a sensible way. The Supreme Court\u27s most recent decisions suggest that the Court has returned to its traditional rules concerning waiver. Such rules respect the states\u27 prerogative of refusing to be sued in a federal forum, while at the same time requiring states to assert their prerogative in an orderly way that respects the needs of the federal judicial system