removed with respect to employees of state hospitals, institutions, and schools.10 We nevertheless sustained the validity of the combined effect of these two amendments in Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968).

In 1974, Congress again broadened the coverage of the Act, 88 Stat. 55. The definition of "employer" in the Act now specifically "includes a public agency," 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). In addition, the critical definition of "[e]nterprise [s] engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce" was expanded to encompass "an activity of a public agency," and goes on to specify that

"[t]he employees of an enterprise which is a public agency shall for purposes of this subsection be deemed to be employees engaged in commerce, or in the production of goods for commerce, or employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods or materials that have been moved in or produced for commerce." 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (5) (1970 ed., Supp. IV).

Under the amendments "[p]ublic agency" is in turn defined as including

"the Government of the United States; the government of a State or political subdivision thereof; any agency of the United States (including the United States Postal Service and Postal Rate Commission), a State, or a political subdivision of a State; or any interstate governmental agency." 29 U. S. C. § 203 (x) (1970 ed., Supp. IV).

By its 1974 amendments, then, Congress has now entirely removed the exemption previously afforded States and their political subdivisions, substituting only the Act's general exemption for executive, administrative, or pro

10 80 Stat. 831, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d) (1964 ed., Supp. II).

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fessional personnel, 29 U. S. C. § 213 (a)(1), which is supplemented by provisions excluding from the Act's coverage those individuals holding public elective office or serving such an officeholder in one of several specific capacities. 29 U. S. C. § 203 (e) (2) (C) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). The Act thus imposes upon almost all public employment the minimum wage and maximum hour requirements previously restricted to employees engaged in interstate commerce. These requirements are essentially identical to those imposed upon private employers, although the Act does attempt to make some provision for public employment relationships which are without counterpart in the private sector, such as those presented by fire protection and law enforcement personnel. See 29 U. S. C. § 207 (k) (1970 ed., Supp. IV).

Challenging these 1974 amendments in the District Court, appellants sought both declaratory and injunctive relief against the amendments' application to them, and a three-judge court was accordingly convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2282. That court, after hearing argument on the law from the parties, granted appellee Secretary of Labor's motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief might be granted. The District Court stated it was "troubled" by appellants' contentions that the amendments would intrude upon the States' performance of essential governmental functions. The court went on to say that it considered their contentions

"substantial and that it may well be that the Supreme Court will feel it appropriate to draw back from the far-reaching implications of [Maryland v. Wirtz, supra]; but that is a decision that only the Supreme Court can make, and as a Federal district court we feel obliged to apply the Wirtz opinion as it stands." National League of Cities v. Brennan, 406 F. Supp. 826, 828 (DC 1974).

We noted probable jurisdiction in order to consider the important questions recognized by the District Court. 420 U. S. 906 (1975). We agree with the District Court that the appellants' contentions are substantial. Indeed upon full consideration of the question we have decided that the "far-reaching implications" of Wirtz should be overruled, and that the judgment of the District Court must be reversed.

II

It is established beyond peradventure that the Commerce Clause of Art. I of the Constitution is a grant of plenary authority to Congress. That authority is, in the words of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), "the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed." Id., at 196.

When considering the validity of asserted applications of this power to wholly private activity, the Court has made it clear that

"[e]ven activity that is purely intrastate in character may be regulated by Congress, where the activity, combined with like conduct by others similarly situated, affects commerce among the States or with foreign nations." Fry v. United States, 421 U. S. 542, 547 (1975).

Congressional power over areas of private endeavor, even when its exercise may pre-empt express state-law determinations contrary to the result which has commended itself to the collective wisdom of Congress, has been held to be limited only by the requirement that "the means chosen by [Congress] must be reasonably adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution." Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 262 (1964).

11 When the cases were not decided in October Term, 1974, they were set down for reargument, 421 U. S. 986 (1975).

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Appellants in no way challenge these decisions establishing the breadth of authority granted Congress under the commerce power. Their contention, on the contrary, is that when Congress seeks to regulate directly the activities of States as public employers, it transgresses an affirmative limitation on the exercise of its power akin to other commerce power affirmative limitations contained in the Constitution. Congressional enactments which may be fully within the grant of legislative authority contained in the Commerce Clause may nonetheless be invalid because found to offend against the right to trial by jury contained in the Sixth Amendment, United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570 (1968), or the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6 (1969). Appellants' essential contention is that the 1974 amendments to the Act, while undoubtedly within the scope of the Commerce Clause, encounter a similar constitutional barrier because they are to be applied directly to the States and subdivisions of States as employers.1

12

...

12 MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent intimates, post, at 858, that guarantees of individual liberties are the only sort of constitutional restrictions which this Court will enforce as against congressional action. It reasons that "Congress is constituted of representatives in both Senate and House elected from the States. Decisions upon the extent of federal intervention under the Commerce Clause into the affairs of the States are in that sense decisions of the States themselves." Post, at 876. Precisely what is meant by the phrase "are in that sense decisions of the States themselves" is not entirely clear from this language; it is indisputable that a common constituency of voters elects both a State's Governor and its two United States Senators. It is equally indisputable that since the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment those Senators are not dependent upon state legislators for their election. But in any event the intimation which this reasoning is used to support is incorrect.

In Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), the Court held that Congress could not by law limit the authority of the President

This Court has never doubted that there are limits upon the power of Congress to override state sovereignty, even when exercising its otherwise plenary powers to tax or to regulate commerce which are conferred by Art. I of the Constitution. In Wirtz, for example, the Court took care to assure the appellants that it had "ample power to prevent 'the utter destruction of the State as a sovereign political entity,' "" which they feared. 392 U. S., at 196. Appellee Secretary in this case, both in his brief and upon oral argument, has agreed that our federal system of government imposes definite limits upon the authority of Congress to regulate the activities of the States as States by means of the commerce power. See, e. g., Brief for Appellee 30-41; Tr. of Oral Arg. 39-43. In Fry, supra, the Court recognized that an express declaration of this limitation is found in the Tenth Amendment:

"While the Tenth Amendment has been characterized as a 'truism,' stating merely that 'all is retained which has not been surrendered,' United States v.

to remove at will an officer of the Executive Branch appointed by him. In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), the Court held that Congress could not constitutionally require that members of the Federal Elections Commission be appointed by officers of the House of Representatives and of the Senate, and that all such appointments had to be made by the President. In each of these cases, an even stronger argument than that made in the dissent could be made to the effect that since each of these bills had been signed by the President, the very officer who challenged them had consented to their becoming law, and it was therefore no concern of this Court that the law violated the Constitution. Just as the dissent contends that "the States are fully able to protect their own interests . . .," post, at 876, it could have been contended that the President, armed with the mandate of a national constituency and with the veto power, was able to protect his own interests. Nonetheless, in both cases the laws were held unconstitutional, because they trenched on the authority of the Executive Branch.