Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation — Ginsburg, J., dissenting

Summary

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting with Justice Kennedy, would affirm the Tenth Circuit’s judgment that Kansas’s fuel tax was preempted under the Indian preemption framework. She argues that despite the tax’s legal incidence falling on a non-Indian distributor, a particularized interest-balancing inquiry under White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker is necessary where the tax burdens on-reservation tribal activity. The dissent concludes that tribal and federal interests in self-governance and reservation infrastructure outweigh Kansas’s general interest in raising revenue.