Opinion of the Court
Lara, 541 U. S., at 210 (law allowing tribes to prosecute nonmember Indians who committed crimes on tribal land); United States v. Bryant, 579 U. S. 140, 142–143 (2016) (law criminalizing domestic violence in Indian country); Mancari, 417 U. S., at 537 (policy granting Indians employment preferences); United States v. Antelope, 430 U. S. 641, 648 (1977) (law establishing a criminal code for Indian country); Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 U. S., at 343 (law altering the boundaries of a reservation); Sunderland v. United States, 266 U. S. 226, 231–232 (1924) (agency action removing the restrictions on alienation of a homestead allotted to an Indian); Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685, 691, n. 18 (1965) (law granting tribe immunity from state taxation); United States v. Algoma Lumber Co., 305 U. S. 415, 417, 421 (1939) (law regulating the sale of timber by an Indian tribe). Indeed, we have only rarely concluded that a challenged statute exceeded Congress’s power to regulate Indian affairs. See, e.g., Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 72–73.
Admittedly, our precedent is unwieldy, because it rarely ties a challenged statute to a specific source of constitutional authority. That makes it difficult to categorize cases and even harder to discern the limits on Congress’s power. Still, we have never wavered in our insistence that Congress’s Indian affairs power “ ‘is not absolute.’ ” Delaware Tribal Business Comm. v. Weeks, 430 U. S. 73, 84 (1977); United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40, 54 (1946) (“The power of Congress over Indian affairs may be of a plenary nature; but it is not absolute”); United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U. S. 103, 110 (1935) (plenary power is “subject to limitations inhering in such a guardianship and to pertinent constitutional restrictions”). It could not be otherwise—Article I gives Congress a series of enumerated powers, not a series of blank checks. Thus, we reiterate that Congress’s authority to legislate with respect to Indians is not unbounded. It is plenary within its sphere, but
