Opinion of the Court
the jurisdiction of state courts in adoption proceedings involving Indian children. Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 390 (1976) (per curiam).
Petitioners are trying to turn a general observation (that Congress’s Article I powers rarely touch state family law) into a constitutional carveout (that family law is wholly exempt from federal regulation). That argument is a nonstarter. As James Madison said to Members of the First Congress, when the Constitution conferred a power on Congress, “they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitution of the States.” 2 Annals of Cong. 1897 (1791). Family law is no exception.
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Petitioners come at the problem from the opposite direction too: Even if there is no family law carveout to the Indian affairs power, they contend that Congress’s authority does not stretch far enough to justify ICWA. Ticking through the various sources of power, petitioners assert that the Constitution does not authorize Congress to regulate custody proceedings for Indian children. Their arguments fail to grapple with our precedent, and because they bear the burden of establishing ICWA’s unconstitutionality, we cannot sustain their challenge to the law. See Lujan v. G & G Fire Sprinklers, Inc., 532 U. S. 189, 198 (2001).
Take the Indian Commerce Clause, which is petitioners’ primary focus. According to petitioners, the Clause authorizes Congress to legislate only with respect to Indian tribes as government entities, not Indians as individuals. Brief for Individual Petitioners 47–50. But we held more than a century ago that “commerce with the Indian tribes, means commerce with the individuals composing those tribes.” United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407, 416–417 (1866) (law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Indians in Indian country); United States v. Nice, 241 U. S. 591, 600 (1916) (same). So
