author: Justice Ginsburg Chief Justice Rehnquist,

text:
    CHANDLER et al. v. MILLER, GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA, et al.
    No. 96-126.
    Argued January 14, 1997
    Decided April 15, 1997

      Walker L. Chandler, petitioner, argued the cause and filed a brief pro se. With him on the briefs for petitioners was Robert E. Turner.

      Patricia Guilday, Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Michael E.

      Hobbs, Deputy Attorney General, and Dennis D. Dunn, Senior Assistant Attorney General.

        Stephen H. Sachs, Steven R. Shapiro, Gerald R. Weber, Arthur B. Spitzer, and Barbara E. Bergman filed a brief for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.

        Richard K. Willard, Daniel J. Popeo, and Paul D. Kamenar filed a brief for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.

        Acting Solicitor General Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Waxman, James A. Feldman, Leonard Schaitman, and Edward Himmelfarb filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae.

   Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Fourth Amendment requires government to respect “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.” This restraint on government conduct generally bars officials from undertaking a search or seizure absent individualized suspicion. Searches conducted without grounds for suspicion of particular individuals have been upheld, however, in “certain limited circumstances.” See Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656, 668 (1989). These circumstances include brief stops for questioning or observation at a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 545-550, 566-567 (1976), or at a sobriety checkpoint, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444, 447, 455 (1990), and administrative inspections in “closely regulated” businesses, New York v. Burger, 482 U. S. 691, 703-704 (1987).

Georgia requires candidates for designated state offices to certify that they have taken a drug test and that the test result was negative. Ga. Code Ann. §21-2-140 (1993) (hereinafter §21-2-140). We confront in this case the question whether that requirement ranks among the limited circumstances in which suspicionless searches are warranted. Relying on this Court's precedents sustaining drug-testing programs for student athletes, customs employees, and railway employees, see Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 650, 665-666 (1995) (random drug testing of students who participate in interscholastic sports); Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 659 (drug tests for United States Customs Service employees who seek transfer or promotion to certain positions); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 608-613 (1989) (drug and alcohol tests for railway employees involved in train accidents and for those who violate particular safety rules), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit judged Georgia’s law constitutional. We reverse that judgment. Georgia’s requirement that candidates for state office pass a drug test, we hold, does not fit within the closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches.

I

The prescription at issue, approved by the Georgia Legislature in 1990, orders that “[ejach candidate seeking to qualify for nomination or election to a state office shall as a condition of such qualification be required to certify that such candidate has tested negative for illegal drugs.” §21 — 2— 140(b). Georgia was the first, and apparently remains the only, State to condition candidacy for state office on a drug test.

Under the Georgia statute, to qualify for a place on the ballot, a candidate must present a certificate from a state-approved laboratory, in a form approved by the Secretary of State, reporting that the candidate submitted to a urinalysis drug test within 30 days prior to qualifying for nomination or election and that the results were negative. § 21 — 2— 140(c). The statute lists as “[ijllegal drug[s]”: marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and phencyclidines. § 21-2-140(a)(3). The designated state offices are: “the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State School Superintendent, Commissioner of Insurance, Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Labor, Justices of the Supreme Court, Judges of the Court of Appeals, judges of the superior courts, district attorneys, members of the General Assembly, and members of the Public Service Commission.” § 21-2-140(a)(4).

Candidate drug tests are to be administered in a manner consistent with the United States Department of Health and Human Services Guidelines, 53 Fed. Reg. 11979-11989 (1988), or other professionally valid procedures approved by Georgia’s Commissioner of Human Resources. See § 21-2-140(a)(2). A candidate may provide the test specimen at a laboratory approved by the State, or at the office of the candidate’s personal physician, see App. 4-5 (Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts). Once a urine sample is obtained, an approved laboratory determines whether any of the five specified illegal drugs are present, id., at 5; §21-2-140(c), and prepares a certificate reporting the test results to the candidate.

Petitioners were Libertarian Party nominees in 1994 for state offices subject to the requirements of §21-2-140. The Party nominated Walker L. Chandler for the office of Lieutenant Governor, Sharon T. Harris for the office of Commissioner of Agriculture, and James D. Walker for the office of member of the General Assembly. In May 1994, about one month before the deadline for submission of the certificates required by §21-2-140, petitioners Chandler, Harris, and Walker filed this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. They asserted, inter alia, that the drug tests required by §21-2-140 violated their rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Naming as defendants Governor Zell D. Miller and two other state officials involved in the administration of §21-2-140, petitioners requested declaratory and injunctive relief barring enforcement of the statute.

In June 1994, the District Court denied petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Stressing the importance of the state offices sought and the relative unintrusiveness of the testing procedure, the court found it unlikely that petitioners would prevail on the merits of their claims. App. to Pet. for Cert. 5B. Petitioners apparently submitted to the drug tests, obtained the certificates required by § 21-2-140, and appeared on the ballot. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. After the 1994 election, the parties jointly moved for the entry of final judgment on stipulated facts. In January 1995, the District Court entered final judgment for respondents.

A divided Eleventh Circuit panel affirmed. 73 F. 3d 1543 (1996). It is settled law, the court accepted, that the drug tests required by the statute rank as searches. But, as was true of the drug-testing programs at issue in Skinner and Von Raab, the court reasoned, §21-2-140 serves “special needs,” interests other than the ordinary needs of law enforcement. The court therefore endeavored to “ ‘balance the individual’s privacy expectations against the Government’s interests to determine whether it [was] impractical to require a warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in the particular context.’” 73 F. 3d, at 1545 (quoting Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 665-666).

Examining the state interests involved, the court acknowledged the absence of any record of drug abuse by elected officials in Georgia. Nonetheless, the court observed, “[t]he people of Georgia place in the trust of their elected officials ... their liberty, their safety, their economic well-being, [and] ultimate responsibility for law enforcement.” 73 F. 3d, at 1546. Consequently, “those vested with the highest executive authority to make public policy in general and frequently to supervise Georgia’s drug interdiction efforts in particular must be persons appreciative of the perils of drug use.” Ibid. The court further noted that “[t]he nature of high public office in itself demands the highest levels of honesty, clear-sightedness, and clear-thinking.” Ibid. Reciting responsibilities of the offices petitioners sought, the Court of Appeals perceived those “positions [as] particularly susceptible to the ‘risks of bribery and blackmail against which the Government is entitled to guard.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 674).

Turning to petitioners’ privacy interests, the Eleventh Circuit emphasized that the tests could be conducted in the office of the candidate’s private physician, making the “intrusion here . . . even less than that approved in Von Raab." 73 F. 3d, at 1547. The court also noted the statute’s reference to federally approved drug-testing guidelines. Ibid. The drug test itself would reveal only the presence or absence of indicia of the use of particular drugs, and not any other information about the health of the candidate. Furthermore, the candidate would control release of the test results: Should the candidate test positive, he or she could forfeit the opportunity to run for office, and in that event, nothing would be divulged to law enforcement officials. Ibid. Another consideration, the court said, is the reality that “candidates for high office must expect the voters to demand some disclosures about their physical, emotional, and mental fitness for the position.” Ibid. Concluding that the State’s interests outweighed the privacy intrusion caused by the required certification, the court held the statute, as applied to petitioners, not inconsistent' with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Ibid.

Judge Barkett dissented. In her view, a balance of the State’s and candidates’ interests was not appropriate, for the State had failed to establish a special governmental need for the regime. “There is nothing so special or immediate about the generalized governmental interests involved here,” she observed, “as to warrant suspension of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of individualized suspicion for searches and seizures.” Id., at 1551.

We granted the petition for certiorari, 518 U. S. 1057 (1996), and now reverse.

II

We begin our discussion of this case with an uncontested point: Georgia’s drug-testing requirement, imposed by law and enforced by state officials, effects a search within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Skinner, 489 U. S., at 617; Tr. of Oral Arg. 36; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae Í0 (collection and testing of urine to meet Georgia’s certification statute “constitutes a search subject to the demands of the Fourth Amendment” (internal quotation marks omitted)). As explained in Sjkin-ner, government-ordered “collection and testing of urine intrudes upon expectations of privacy that society has long recognized as reasonable.” 489 U. S., at 617. Because “these intrusions [are] searches under the Fourth Amendment,” ibid., we focus on the question: Are the searches reasonable?

To be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, a search ordinarily must be based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 652-653. But particularized exceptions to the main rule are sometimes warranted based on “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” Skinner, 489 U. S., at 619 (internal quotation marks omitted). When such “special needs”— concerns other than crime detection — are alleged in justification of a Fourth Amendment intrusion, courts must undertake a context-specific inquiry, examining closely the competing private and public interests advanced by the parties. See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 665-666; see also id., at 668. As Skinner stated: “In limited circumstances, where the privacy interests implicated by the search are minimal, and where an important governmental interest furthered by the intrusion would be placed in jeopardy by a requirement of individualized suspicion, a search may be reasonable despite the absence of such suspicion.” 489 U. S., at 624.

In evaluating Georgia’s ballot-access, drug-testing statute — a measure plainly not tied to individualized suspicion— the Eleventh Circuit sought to “ ‘balance the individual’s privacy expectations against the [State’s] interests,’ ” 73 F. 3d, at 1545 (quoting Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 665), in line with our precedents most immediately in point: Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia. We review those decisions before inspecting Georgia’s law.

A

Skinner concerned Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulations that required blood and urine tests of rail employees involved in train accidents; the regulations also authorized railroads to administer breath and urine tests to employees who violated certain safety rules. 489 U. S., at 608-612. The FRA adopted the drug-testing program in response to evidence of drug and alcohol abuse by some railroad employees, the obvious safety hazards posed by such abuse, and the documented link between drug- and alcohol-impaired employees and the incidence of train accidents. Id., at 607-608. Recognizing that the urinalysis tests, most conspicuously, raised evident privacy concerns, the Court noted two offsetting considerations: First, the regulations reduced the intrusiveness of the collection process, id., at 626; and, more important, railway employees, “by reason of their participation in an industry that is regulated pervasively to ensure safety,” had diminished expectations of privacy, id., at 627.

“[Surpassing safety interests,” the Court concluded, warranted the FRA testing program. Id., at 634. The drug tests could deter illegal drug use by railroad employees, workers positioned to “cause great human loss before any signs of impairment become noticeable to supervisors.” Id., at 628. The program also helped railroads to obtain invaluable information about the causes of major train accidents. See id., at 630. Testing without a showing of individualized suspicion was essential, the Court explained, if these vital interests were to be served. See id., at 628. Employees could not forecast the timing of an accident or a safety violation, events that would trigger testing. The employee’s inability to avoid detection simply by staying drug free at a prescribed test time significantly enhanced the deterrent effect of the program. See ibid. Furthermore, imposing an individualized suspicion requirement for a drug test in the chaotic aftermath of a train accident would seriously impede an employer’s ability to discern the cause of the accident; indeed, waiting until suspect individuals could be identified “likely would result in the loss or deterioration of the evidence furnished by the tests.” Id., at 631.

In Von Raab, the Court sustained a United States Customs Service program that made drug tests a condition of promotion or transfer to positions directly involving drug interdiction or requiring the employee to carry a firearm. 489 U. S., at 660-661, 667-677. While the Service’s regime was not prompted by a demonstrated drug abuse problem, id., at 660, it was developed for an agency with an “almost unique mission,” id., at 674, as the “first line of defense” against the smuggling of illicit drugs into the United States, id., at 668. Work directly involving drug interdiction and posts that require the employee to carry a firearm pose grave safety threats to employees who hold those positions, and also expose them to large amounts of illegal narcotics and to persons engaged in crime; illicit drug users in such high-risk positions might be unsympathetic to the Service’s mission, tempted by bribes, or even threatened with blackmail. See id., at 668-671. The Court held that the Government had a “compelling” interest in assuring that employees placed in these positions would not include drug users. See id., at 670-671. Individualized suspicion would not work in this setting, the Court determined, because it was “not feasible to subject [these] employees and their work product to the kind of day-to-day scrutiny that is the norm in more traditional office environments.” Id., at 674.

Finally, in Vernonia, the Court sustained a random drug-testing program for-high school students engaged in interscholastic athletic competitions. The program’s context was critical, for a local government bears large “responsibilities, under a public school system, as guardian and tutor of children entrusted to its care.” 515 U. S., at 665. An “immediate crisis,” id., at 663, caused by “a sharp increase in drug use” in the school district, id., at 648, sparked installation of the program. District Court findings established that student athletes were not only “among the drug users,” they were “leaders of the drug culture.” Id., at 649. Our decision noted that “‘students within the school environment have a lesser expectation of privacy than members of the population generally.’ ” Id., at 657 (quoting New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 348 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring)). We emphasized the importance of deterring drug use by schoolchildren and the risk of injury a drug-using student athlete east on himself and those engaged with him on the playing field. See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 662.

B

Respondents urge that the precedents just examined are not the sole guides for assessing the constitutional validity of the Georgia statute. The “special needs” analysis, they contend, must be viewed through a different lens because § 21-2-140 implicates Georgia’s sovereign power, reserved to it under the Tenth Amendment, to establish qualifications for those who seek state office. Respondents rely on Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452 (1991), which upheld against federal statutory and Equal Protection Clause challenges Missouri’s mandatory retirement age of 70 for state judges. The Court found this age classification reasonable and not barred by the federal legislation. See id., at 473. States, Gregory reaffirmed, enjoy wide latitude to establish conditions of candidacy for state office, but in setting such conditions, they may not disregard basic constitutional protections. See id., at 463; McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978) (invalidating state provision prohibiting members of clergy from serving as delegates to state constitutional convention); Communist Party of Ind. v. Whitcomb, 414 U. S. 441 (1974) (voiding loyalty oath as a condition of ballot access); Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116 (1966) (Georgia Legislature could not exclude elected representative on ground that his antiwar statements cast doubt on his ability to take an oath). We are aware of no precedent suggesting that a State’s power to establish qualifications for state offices — any more than its sovereign power to prosecute crime — diminishes the constraints on state action imposed by the Fourth Amendment. We therefore reject respondents’ invitation to apply in this case a framework extraordinarily deferential to state measures setting conditions of candidacy for state office. Our guides remain Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia.

Turning to those guides, we note, first, that the testing method the Georgia statute describes is relatively noninvasive; therefore, if the “special needs” showing had been made, the State could not be faulted for excessive intrusion. Georgia’s statute invokes the drug-testing guidelines applicable to the federal programs upheld in Skinner and Von Raab. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20-21; Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 661-662, n. 1. The State permits a candidate to provide the urine specimen in the office of his or her private physician; and the results of the test are given first to the candidate, who controls further dissemination of the report. Because the State has effectively limited the invasiveness of the testing procedure, we concentrate on the core issue: Is the certification requirement warranted by a special need?

Our precedents establish that the proffered special need for drug testing must be substantial — important enough to override the individual’s acknowledged privacy interest, sufficiently vital to suppress the Fourth Amendment’s normal requirement of individualized suspicion. See supra, at 313-317 and this page. Georgia has failed to show, in justification of § 21-2-140, a special need of that kind.

Respondents’ defense of the statute rests primarily on the incompatibility of unlawful drug use with holding high state office. The statute is justified, respondents contend, because the use of illegal drugs draws into question an official’s judgment and integrity; jeopardizes the discharge of public functions, including antidrug law enforcement efforts; and undermines public confidence and trust in elected officials. Brief for Respondents 11-18. The statute, according to respondents, serves to deter unlawful drug users from becoming candidates and thus stops them from attaining high state office. Id., at 17-18. Notably lacking in respondents’ presentation is any indication of a concrete danger demanding departure from the Fourth Amendment’s main rule.

Nothing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia’s polity. The statute was not enacted, as counsel for respondents readily acknowledged at oral argument, in response to any fear or suspicion of drug use by state officials:

“QUESTION: Is there any indication anywhere in this record that Georgia has a particular problem here with State officeholders being drug abusers?
“[COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENTS]: No, there is no such evidence, [and] to be frank, there is no such problem as we sit here today.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 32.

See also id., at 31 (counsel for respondents affirms absence of evidence that state officeholders in Georgia have drug problems). A demonstrated problem of drug abuse, while not in all cases necessary to the validity of a testing regime, see Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 673-675, would shore up an assertion of special need for a suspicionless general search program. Proof of unlawful drug use may help to clarify — and to substantiate — the precise hazards posed by such use. Thus, the evidence of drug and alcohol use by railway employees engaged in safety-sensitive tasks in Skinner, see 489 U. S., at 606-608, and the immediate crisis prompted by a sharp rise in students’ use of unlawful drugs in Vernonia, see 515 U. S., at 662-663, bolstered the Government’s and school officials’ arguments that drug-testing programs were warranted and appropriate.

In contrast to the effective testing regimes upheld in Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia, Georgia’s certification requirement is not well designed to identify candidates who violate antidrug laws. Nor is the scheme a credible means to deter illicit drug users from seeking election to state office. The test date — to be scheduled by the candidate anytime within 30 days prior to qualifying for a place on the ballot — is no secret. As counsel for respondents acknowledged at oral argument, users of illegal drugs, save for those prohibitively addicted, could abstain for a pretest period sufficient to avoid detection. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 44-46. Even if we indulged respondents’ argument that one purpose of §21-2-140 might be to detect those unable so to abstain, see id., at 46, respondents have not shown or argued that such persons are likely to be candidates for public office in Georgia. Moreover, respondents have offered no reason why ordinary law enforcement methods would not suffice to apprehend such addicted individuals, should they appear in the limelight of a public stage. Section 21-2-140, in short, is not needed and cannot work to ferret out lawbreakers, and respondents barely attempt to support the statute on that ground.

Respondents and the United States as amicus curiae rely most heavily on our decision in Von Raab, which sustained a drug-testing program for Customs Service officers prior to promotion or transfer to certain high-risk positions, despite the absence of any documented drug abuse problem among Service employees. 489 U. S., at 660; see Brief for Respondents 12-14; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18; see also 73 F. 3d, at 1646. The posts in question in Von Raab directly involved drug interdiction or otherwise required the Service member to carry a firearm. See 489 U. S., at 670 (“Government has a compelling interest in ensuring that front-line interdiction personnel are physically fit, and have unimpeachable integrity and judgment.”); id., at 670-671 (“[T]he public should not bear the risk that employees who may suffer from impaired perception and judgment will be promoted to positions where they may need to employ deadly force.”).

Hardly a decision opening broad vistas for suspicionless searches, Von Raab must be read in its unique context. As the Customs Service reported in announcing the testing program: “Customs employees, more than any other Federal workers, are routinely exposed to the vast network of organized crime that is inextricably tied to illegal drug use.” National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 816 F. 2d 170, 173 (CA5 1987) (internal quotation marks omitted), aff’d in part, vacated in part, 489 U. S. 656 (1989). We stressed that “[d]rug interdiction ha[d] become the agency’s primary enforcement mission,” id., at 660, and that the employees in question would have “access to vast sources of valuable contraband,” id., at 669. Furthermore, Customs officers “ha[dj been the targets of bribery by drug smugglers on numerous occasions,” and several had succumbed to the temptation. Ibid.

Respondents overlook a telling difference between Von Raab and Georgia’s candidate drug-testing program. In Von Raab it was “not feasible to subject employees [required to carry firearms or concerned with interdiction of controlled substances] and their work product to the kind of day-to-day scrutiny that is the norm in more traditional office environments.” Id., at 674. Candidates for public office, in contrast, are subject to relentless scrutiny — by their peers, the public, and the press. Their day-to-day conduct attracts attention notably beyond the norm in ordinary work environments.

What is left, after close review of Georgia’s scheme, is the image the State seeks to project. By requiring candidates for public office to submit to drug testing, Georgia displays its commitment to the struggle against drug abuse. The suspicionless tests, according to respondents, signify that candidates, if elected, will be fit to serve their constituents free from the influence of illegal drugs. But Georgia asserts no evidence of a drug problem among the State’s elected officials, those officials typically do not perform high-risk, safety-sensitive tasks, and the required certification immediately aids no interdiction effort. The need revealed, in short, is symbolic, not “special,” as that term draws meaning from our case law.

In Von Raab, the Customs Service had defended its officer drug-testing program in part as a way to demonstrate the agency’s commitment to enforcement of the law. See Brief for United States in Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, O. T. 1988, No. 86-1879, pp. 35-36. The Von Raab Court, however, did not rely on that justification. Indeed, if a need of the “set a good example” genre were sufficient to overwhelm a Fourth Amendment objection, then the care this Court took to explain why the needs in Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia ranked as “special” wasted many words in entirely unnecessary, perhaps even misleading, elaborations.

In a pathmarking dissenting opinion, Justice Brandéis recognized the importance of teaching by example: “Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 485 (1928). Justice Brandéis explained in Olmstead why the Government set a bad example when it introduced in a criminal proceeding evidence obtained through an unlawful Government wiretap:

“[I]t is . . . immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Id., at 479.

However well meant, the candidate drug test Georgia has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol’s sake. The Fourth Amendment shields society against that state action.

III

We note, finally, matters this opinion does not treat. Georgia’s singular drug test for candidates is not part of a medical examination designed to provide certification of a candidate’s general health, and we express no opinion on such examinations. Nor do we touch on financial disclosure requirements, which implicate different concerns and procedures. See, e. g., Barry v. City of New York, 712 F. 2d 1554 (CA2 1983) (upholding city’s financial disclosure law for elected and appointed officials, candidates for city office, and certain city employees); Plante v. Gonzalez, 575 F. 2d 1119 (CA5 1978) (upholding Florida’s financial disclosure requirements for certain public officers, candidates, and employees). And we do not speak to drug testing in the private sector, a domain unguarded by Fourth Amendment constraints. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 113 (1984).

We reiterate, too, that where the risk to public safety is substantial and real, blanket suspicionless searches calibrated to the risk may rank as “reasonable” — for example, searches now routine at airports and at entrances to courts and other official buildings. See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 674-676, and n. 3. But where, as in this case, public safety is not genuinely in jeopardy, the Fourth Amendment precludes the suspicionless search, no matter how conveniently arranged.

* * *

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is

Reversed.

Chief Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

I fear that the novelty of this Georgia law has led the Court to distort Fourth Amendment doctrine in order to strike it down. The Court notes, impliedly turning up its nose, that “Georgia was the first, and apparently remains the only, State to condition candidacy for state office on a drug test.” Ante, at 309. But if we are to heed the oft-quoted words of Justice Brandéis in his dissent in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) — “[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country” — novelty itself is not a vice. These novel experiments, of course, must comply with the United States Constitution; but their mere novelty should not be a strike against them.

Few would doubt that the use of illegal drugs and abuse of legal drugs is one of the major problems of our society. Cases before this Court involving drug use extend to numerous occupations — railway employees, Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989), Border Patrol officers, Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989), high school students, Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646 (1995), and machine operators, Paperworkers v. Misco, Inc., 484 U. S. 29 (1987). It would take a bolder person than I to say that such widespread drug usage could never extend to candidates for public office such as Governor of Georgia. The Court says that “[n]othing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia’s polity.” Ante, at 319. But surely the State need not wait for a drug addict, or one inclined to use drugs illegally, to run for or actually become Governor before it installs a prophylactic mechanism. We held as much in Von Raab:

“First, petitioners argue that the program is unjustified because it is not based on a belief that testing will reveal any drug use by covered employees. In pressing this argument, petitioners point out that the Service’s testing scheme was not implemented in response to any perceived drug problem among Customs employees ....
“Petitioners’ first contention evinces an unduly narrow view of the context in which the Service’s testing program was implemented. Petitioners do not dispute, nor can there be doubt, that drug abuse is one of the most serious problems confronting our society today. There is little reason to believe that American workplaces are immune from this pervasive social problem . . . .” 489 U. S., at 673-674.

The test under the Fourth Amendment, as these cases have held, is whether the search required by the Georgia statute is “reasonable.” Today’s opinion speaks of a “closely guarded” class of permissible suspicionless searches which must be justified by a “special need.” But this term, as used in Skinner and Von Raab and on which the Court now relies, was used in a quite different sense than it is used by the Court today. In Skinner and Von Raab it was used to describe a basis for a search apart from the regular needs of law enforcement, Skinner, supra, at 620; Von Raab, supra, at 669. The “special needs” inquiry as delineated there has not required especially great “importan[ce],” ante, at 318, unless one considers “the supervision of probationers,” or the “operation of a government office,” Skinner, supra, at 620, to be especially “important.” Under our precedents, if there was a proper governmental purpose other than law enforcement, there was a “special need,” and the Fourth Amendment then required the familiar balancing between that interest and the individual’s privacy interest.

Under normal Fourth Amendment analysis, the individual’s expectation of privacy is an important factor in the equation. But here, the Court perversely relies on the fact that a candidate for office gives up so much privacy — “[candidates for public office ... are subject to relentless scrutiny— by their peers, the public, and the press,” ante, at 321 — as a reason for sustaining a Fourth Amendment claim. The Court says, in effect, that the kind of drug test for candidates required by the Georgia law is unnecessary, because the scrutiny to which they are already subjected by reason of their candidacy will enable people to detect any drug use on their part. But this is a strange holding, indeed. One might just as easily say that the railroad employees in Skinner, or the Customs officials in Von Raab, would be subjected to the same sort of scrutiny from their fellow employees and their supervisors. But the clear teaching of those cases is that the government is not required to settle for that sort of a vague and uncanalized scrutiny; if in fact preventing persons who use illegal drugs from concealing that fact from the public is a legitimate government interest, these cases indicate that the government may require a drug test.

The privacy concerns ordinarily implicated by urinalysis drug testing are “negligible,” Vernonia, supra, at 658, when the procedures used in collecting and analyzing the urine samples are set up “to reduce the intrusiveness” of the process, Skinner, supra, at 626. Under the Georgia law, the candidate may produce the test specimen at his own doctor’s office, which must be one of the least intrusive types of urinalysis drug tests conceivable. But although the Court concedes this, it nonetheless manages to count this factor against the State, because with this kind of test the person tested will have advance notice of its being given, and will therefore be able to abstain from drug use during the necessary period of time. But one may be sure that if the test were random — and therefore apt to ensnare more users — the Court would then fault it for its intrusiveness. Cf. Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 676, and n. 4.

In Von Raab, we described as “compelling” the Government interest “in ensuring that many of these covered employees do not use drugs even off duty, for such use creates risks of bribery and blackmail against which the Government is entitled to guard.” Id., at 674 (emphasis added). The risks of bribery and blackmail for high-level officials of state government using illegal drugs would seem to be at least as significant as those for off-duty Customs officials. Even more important, however, is our treatment of the third class of tested employees in Von Raab, those who “handle[d] ‘clas-sifted’ materials.” The Court relegates this discussion to a footnote, ante, at 315, n. 3, and all but dismisses it. Although the lack of factual development of the record in Von Raab prevented us from determining who “handle[d] ‘classified’ material,” we did consider the weight of the proffered governmental interest:

“We readily agree that the Government has a compelling interest in protecting truly sensitive information from those who, ‘under compulsion of circumstances or for other reasons,... might compromise [such] information.’ Department of Navy v. Egan, 484 U. S. 518, 528 (1988). . . . We also agree that employees who seek promotions to positions where they would handle sensitive information can be required to submit to a urine test under the Service’s screening program, especially if the positions covered under this category require background investigations, medical examinations, or other intrusions that may be expected to diminish their expectations of privacy in respect of a urinalysis test.” 489 U. S., at 677.

Although petitioners might raise questions as to some of the other positions covered by the Georgia statute, there is no question that, at least for positions like Governor and Lieutenant Governor, identical concerns are implicated. In short, when measured through the correct lens of our precedents in this area, the Georgia urinalysis test is a “reasonable” search; it is only by distorting these precedents that the Court is able to reach the result it does.

Lest readers expect the holding of this case to be extended to any other case, the Court notes that the drug test here is not a part of a medical examination designed to provide certification of a candidate’s general health. Ante, at 323. It is all but inconceivable that a case involving that sort of requirement could be decided differently than the present case; the same sort of urinalysis would be involved. The only possible basis for distinction is to say that the State has a far greater interest in the candidate’s “general health” than it does with respect to his propensity to use illegal drugs. But this is the sort of policy judgment that surely must be left to legislatures, rather than being announced from on high by the Federal Judiciary.

Nothing in the Fourth Amendment or in any other part of the Constitution prevents a State from enacting a statute whose principal vice is that it may seem misguided or even silly to the Members of this Court. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

       The court also rejected equal protection and free speech pleas made by petitioners. 73 F. 3d, at 1547-1549. We hold § 21-2-140 incompatible with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and do not reach petitioners’ further pleas.

       The United States, as amicus curiae in support of respondents, suggests that this case may have become moot because there is no continuing controversy regarding the now-completed 1994 election, and petitioners, who did not sue on behalf of a class, failed to assert in the courts below that they intended to run for a covered state office in a future election. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9-10, n. 4. We reject the suggestion of mootness. Petitioner Chandler represented, as an officer of this Court, that he plans to run again, and counsel for the State does not contest that representation. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-6, 27; see also 28 U. S. C. § 1653 (defective allegations of jurisdiction curable by amendment at trial or in appellate stages).

       The Service’s program also required tests for individuals promoted or transferred to positions in which they would handle “classified” material. 489 U. S., at 661. The Court agreed that the Government “ha[d] a compelling interest in protecting truly sensitive information.” Id,., at 677. However, we did not rule on this aspect of the program, see id., at 677-678, because the record did not clarify “whether the category defined by the [regulation] encompassed] only those Customs employees likely to gain access to sensitive information," id., at 678.

       In Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989), the applicant for promotion or transfer could not know precisely when action would be taken on the application. In contrast, the potential candidate knows from the start the timing of all relevant events.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice O’Connor Justice Scalia,

license: Public Domain

text:
    BLESSING, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC SECURITY v. FREESTONE et al.
    No. 95-1441.
    Argued January 6, 1997
    Decided April 21, 1997

      C. Tim Delaney, Solicitor General of Arizona, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Grant Woods, Attorney General, Carter G. Phillips, Richard D. Bernstein, and Adam D. Hirsh.

      Marsha S. Berzon argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

      Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With her on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, William Ranter, and Alfred Mollin.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Illinois et al. by James E. Ryan, Attorney General of Illinois, Barbara A. Preiner, Solicitor General, and James C. O’Connell, Barbara L. Greenspan, and James C. Stevens, Special Assistant Attorneys General, and Charles F. C. Ruff, Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Gale A. Norton of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Michael J. Bowers of Georgia, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Pamela S. Carter of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Andrew Ketterer of Maine, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Jeffrey R. Howard of New Hampshire, Peter Verniero of New Jersey, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Jeffrey B. Pine of Rhode Island, Charles Molony Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Charles W. Burson of Tennessee, Dan Morales of Texas, Jan Graham of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy of Vermont, James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, Christine 0. Gregoire of Washington, William U. Hill of Wyoming, Malaetasi M. Togafau of American Samoa, Calvin E. Holloway, Sr., of Guam, and Julio A. Brady of the Virgin Islands; for the American Public Welfare Association et al. by Diana L. Fogle; for the Council of State Governments et al. by Richard Ruda and Charles Rothfeld; and for the National District Attorneys Association et al. by John D. Krisor, Jr., John Kaye, Michael R. Capizi, John Ladenburg, and Michael McCormick.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Christopher A. Hansen, Steven R. Shapiro, and Erwin Chemerinsky; for the Anti-Poverty Project of the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago Law School by Gary H. Palm; for the National Center for Youth Law et al. by Leora Gershen-zon, Martha Matthews, and Brian Paddock; and for the National Women’s Law Center et al. by Regina G. Maloney, Nancy Duff Campbell, Elisabeth Hirschhorn Donahue, and Martha F. Davis.

   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns a lawsuit brought by five mothers in Arizona whose children are eligible to receive child support services from the State pursuant to Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, as added, 88 Stat. 2351, and as amended, 42 U. S. C. §§ 651-669b (1994 ed. and Supp. II). These custodial parents sued the director of Arizona’s child support agency under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, claiming that they had an enforceable individual right to have the State’s program achieve “substantial compliance” with the requirements of Title IV-D. Without distinguishing among the numerous provisions of this complex program, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that respondents had such a right. We disagree that the statutory scheme can be analyzed so generally, and hold that Title IV-D does not give individuals a federal right to force a state agency to substantially comply with Title IV-D. Accordingly, we vacate and remand with instructions to remand to the District Court.

I

This controversy concerns an interlocking set of cooperative federal-state welfare programs. Arizona participates in the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which provides subsistence welfare benefits to needy families. Social Security Act, Title IV-A, 42 U. S. C. §§ 601-617. To qualify for federal AFDC funds, the State must certify that it will operate a child support enforcement program that conforms with the numerous requirements set forth in Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §§651-669b (1994 ed. and Supp. II), and will do so pursuant to a detailed plan that has been approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary). § 602(a)(2); see also § 652(a)(3). The Federal Government underwrites roughly two-thirds of the cost of the State’s child support efforts. § 655(a). But the State must do more than simply collect overdue support payments; it must also establish a comprehensive system to establish paternity, locate absent parents, and help families obtain support orders. §§651,654.

A State must provide these services free of charge to. AFDC recipients and, when requested, for a nominal fee to children and custodial parents who are not receiving AFDC payments. §§651, 654(4). AFDC recipients must assign their child support rights to the State and fully cooperate with the State’s efforts to establish paternity and obtain support payments. Although the State may keep most of the support payments that it collects on behalf of AFDC families in order to offset the costs of providing welfare benefits, until recently it only had to distribute the first $50 of each payment to the family. 42 U. S. C. § 657(b)(1). The amended version of Title IV-D replaces this $50 pass-through with more generous distributions to families once they leave welfare. 42 U. S. C. § 657(a)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. II). Non-AFDC recipients who request the State’s aid are entitled to have all collected funds passed through. § 657(a)(3). In all cases, the State must distribute the family’s share of collected support payments within two businéss days after receipt. § 654b(c)(l).

The structure of each State’s Title IY-D agency, like the services it provides, must conform to federal guidelines. For example, States must create separate units to administer the plan, §654(3), and to disburse collected funds, § 654(27), each of which must be staffed at levels set by the Secretary, 45 CFR §303.20 (1995). If a State delegates its disbursement function to local governments, it must reward the most efficient local agencies with a share of federal incentive payments. 42 U. S. C. § 654(22). To maintain detailed records of all pending cases, as well as to generate the various reports required by federal authorities, States must set up computer systems that meet numerous federal specifications. § 654a. Finally, in addition to setting up this administrative framework, each participating State must enact laws designed to streamline paternity and child support actions. §§654(20), 666.

To oversee this complex federal-state enterprise, Congress created the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This agency is charged with auditing the States’ compliance with their federally approved plans. Audits must occur at least once every three years, or more often if a State’s performance falls below certain standards. § 652(a)(4). If a State does not “substantially comply” with the requirements of Title IV-D, the Secretary is authorized to penalize the State by reducing its AFDC grant by up to five percent. § 609(a)(8). The Secretary has interpreted “substantial compliance” as: (a) full compliance with requirements that services be offered statewide and that certain recipients be notified monthly of the support collected, as well as with reporting, recordkeeping, and accounting rules; (b) 90 percent compliance with case opening and case closure criteria; and (c) 75 percent compliance with most remaining program requirements. 45 CFR §305.20 (1995). The Secretary may suspend a penalty if the State implements an adequate corrective action plan, and if the program achieves “substantial compliance,” she may rescind the penalty entirely. 42 U. S. C. § 609(c) (1994 ed., Supp. II).

II

Arizona’s record of enforcing child support obligations is less than stellar, particularly compared with those of other States. In a 1992 report, Arizona’s Auditor General chronicled many of the State’s problems. In the 1989-1990 fiscal year, Arizona failed to collect enough child support payments and federal incentives to cover the administrative costs of its Title IV-D program — 1 of only 10 States to fall below that target. Arizona Auditor General, A Performance Audit of the Arizona Department of Economic Security 2 (1992). The Auditor General also pointed out that the cost effectiveness of Arizona’s support enforcement efforts had been “minimal.” For every dollar spent on enforcement, the State collected barely two dollars — almost half the nationwide average. Ibid. In 1992, nearly three-quarters of Arizona’s 275,000 child support cases were still in the earliest stages of the enforcement process. In 42 percent of all cases, paternity had yet to be established. In a further 29 percent, the absent parent had been identified but his or her whereabouts were unknown. Id., at 12. Overall, the Auditor General found that Arizona “obtains regular child support payments for fewer than five percent of the parents it serves.” Id., at 9.

Federal audits by OCSE have also identified shortcomings in Arizona’s child support system. In several reviews of the State’s performance from 1984 to 1989, the Secretary found that Arizona had not substantially complied with significant program requirements, and she repeatedly penalized the State one percent of its AFDC grant. The State developed a corrective action plan after each failed audit, which prompted the Secretary to suspend and — in every instance but one — waive the one-percent reduction in Arizona’s AFDC funding.

Respondents are five Arizona mothers (some of whom receive AFDC benefits) whose children are eligible for Title IV-D child support services. They filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona against the Director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, the state agency charged with providing child support services under Title IV-D. In a lengthy complaint, respondents claimed that they had properly applied for child support services but that, despite their good faith efforts to cooperate, the agency never took adequate steps to obtain child support payments from the fathers of their children. These omissions, respondents contended, were largely attributable to structural defects in the State’s child support efforts: staff shortages, high caseloads, unmanageable backlogs, and deficiencies in the State’s accounting methods and recordkeeping. App. 11, 14-16. Respondents sought to represent a class of all children and custodial parents residing in Arizona who are or will be entitled to Title IV-D services.

Respondents claimed that the State’s systemic failures violated their federal rights under Title IV-D. Invoking .42 U. S. C. § 1983, they asked the District Court to grant them the following broad relief:

“Enter a declaratory judgment determining that operation of the Arizona Title IV-D program violates controlling, substantive provisions of federal law creating rights in plaintiffs and the class enforceable through an action permitted by 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
“Grant permanent (and as necessary and appropriate, interlocutory) injunctions prohibiting continued adherence to the aforesaid pattern and practices and requiring affirmative measures sufficient to achieve as well as sustain substantial compliance with federal law, throughout all programmatic operations at issue.” App. 42.

The Director immediately moved to dismiss the complaint on several grounds, arguing primarily that Title IV-D ere-ates no individual rights enforceable under § 1983. The District Court treated this motion as one for summary judgment and ruled in favor of the Director. Relying primarily on a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Carelli v. Howser, 923 F. 2d 1208 (1991), the District Court held that Congress had foreclosed private actions to enforce Title IV-D by authorizing the Secretary to audit and cut off funds to States with programs that do not substantially comply with Title IV-D’s requirements.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 68 F. 3d 1141 (1995). The majority identified the three principal factors this Court has used to determine whether a statute creates a privately enforceable right: whether the plaintiff is one of the “intended beneficiaries of the statute,” whether the plaintiffs’ asserted interests are not so “ Vague and amorphous’ as to be ‘beyond the competence of the judiciary to enforce,’ ” and whether the statute imposes a binding obligation on the State. Id., at 1147 (quoting Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn., 496 U. S. 498, 509 (1990)). Title IV-D, the Court of Appeals held, satisfied each of these criteria. First, “needy families with children” were the intended beneficiaries of Title IV-D. 68 F. 3d, at 1150. Second, the majority held that the “plaintiffs’ asserted interest is not vagüe or amorphous, and it is sufficiently concrete to be judicially enforceable” because whether a State delivers the services required by Title IV-D “to the degree required by law is judicially ascertainable.” Id., at 1149-1150. Finally, the Court of Appeals stated that the statute imposes binding obligations because a State must satisfy each of the requirements spelled out in Title IV-D in order to receive AFDC funding. Although the majority acknowledged that the requirement that a State remain in “substantial compliance” with its plan might seem ambiguous when divorced from context, the majority believed that the “highly detailed requirements” of the statute and its implementing regulations adequately notified the State of the extent of its duties. Id., at 1148. Moreover, the Court of Appeals noted that “the statute . . . sets forth detailed criteria for measuring compliance with the statute,” for example, generally requiring States to establish paternity in a given percentage of all cases. Id., at 1149 (citing 42 U. S. C. § 652(g)). Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that respondents could sue petitioner under § 1983 to bring Arizona’s child support enforcement program into substantial compliance with federal law. 68 F. 3d, at 1150.

The Court of Appeals also disagreed with the District Court’s conclusion that Congress had implicitly foreclosed an individual remedy under § 1983 for violations of Title IV-D. The majority noted that Title IV-D includes no provisions for judicial enforcement that might supplant the § 1983 remedy. Id., at 1153. Instead, the law simply gave the Secretary administrative oversight powers that were virtually indiscernible from those we had found insufficient to displace §1983 liability in Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418 (1987). The majority expressed no opinion as to the appropriateness of either in-junctive or declaratory relief, and left that question for the District Court to answer in the first instance. 68 F. 3d, at 1156.

Judge Kleinfeld dissented, arguing that Congress placed the power to enforce Title IV-D exclusively in the hands of the Secretary. He contended that the “ ‘substantial compliance’ standard does not ‘unambiguously confer’ enforceable rights on any individual.” Id., at 1157. At most, Title IV-D called upon States “to try pretty hard, and do a pretty good job, of enforcing child support, and come up with a plan to try harder if the Secretary thinks they have not been trying hard enough.” Ibid.

We granted certiorari to resolve disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as to whether individuals may sue state officials under § 1983 for violations of Title IV-D. 517 U. S. 1186 (1996).

III

Section 1983 imposes liability on anyone who, under color of state law, deprives a person “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” We have held that this provision safeguards certain rights conferred by federal statutes. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980). In order to seek redress through § 1983, however, a plaintiff must assert the violation of a federal right, not merely a violation of federal law. Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 493 U. S. 103, 106 (1989). We have traditionally looked at three factors when determining whether a particular statutory provision gives rise to a federal right. First, Congress must have intended that the provision in question benefit the plaintiff. Wright, 479 U. S., at 430. Second, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the right assertedly protected by the statute is not so “vague and amorphous” that its enforcement would strain judicial competence. Id., at 431-432. Third, the statute must unambiguously impose a binding obligation on the States. In other words, the provision giving rise to the asserted right must be couched in mandatory, rather than precatory, terms. Wilder, supra, at 510-511; see also Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981) (discussing whether Congress created obligations giving rise to an implied cause of action).

Even if a plaintiff demonstrates that a federal statute ere-ates an individual right, there is only a rebuttable presumption that the right is enforceable under § 1983. Because our inquiry focuses on congressional intent, dismissal is proper if Congress “specifically foreclosed a remedy under § 1983.” Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 1005, n. 9 (1984). Congress may do so expressly, by forbidding recourse to § 1983 in the statute itself, or impliedly, by creating a comprehensive enforcement scheme that is incompatible with individual enforcement under § 1983. Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U. S. 107, 133 (1994).

A

With these principles in mind, we turn first to the question whether respondents have established that Title IV-D gives them federal rights.

In their complaint, respondents argued that federal law granted them “individual rights to all mandated services delivered in substantial compliance with Title IV-D and its implementing regulations.” App. 41. They sought a broad injunction requiring the Director of Arizona’s child support agency to achieve “substantial compliance . . . throughout all programmatic operations.” Id., at 42. Attributing the deficiencies in the State’s program primarily to staff shortages and other structural defects, respondents essentially invited the District Court to oversee every aspect of Arizona’s Title IV-D program.

Without distinguishing among the numerous rights that might have been created by this federally funded welfare program, the Court of Appeals agreed in sweeping terms that “Title IV-D creates enforceable rights in families in need of Title IV-D services.” 68 F. 3d, at 1150. The Court of Appeals did not specify exactly which “rights” it was purporting to recognize, but it apparently believed that federal law gave respondents the right to have the State substantially comply with Title IV-D in all respects. We disagree.

As an initial matter, the lower court’s holding that Title IV-D “creates enforceable rights” paints with too broad a brush. It was incumbent upon respondents to identify with particularity the rights they claimed, since it is impossible to determine whether Title IV-D, as an undifferentiated whole, gives rise to undefined “rights.” Only when the complaint is broken down into manageable analytic bites can a court ascertain whether each separate claim satisfies the various criteria we have set forth for determining whether a federal statute creates rights. See, e. g., Golden State, supra, at 106 (asking whether the “provision in question” was designed to benefit the plaintiff).

In prior cases, we have been able to determine whether or not a statute created a given right because the plaintiffs articulated, and lower courts evaluated, well-defined claims. In Wright, for example, we held that tenants of public housing projects had a right to have their utility costs included within a rental payment that did not exceed 30 percent of their income. We did not ask whether the federal housing legislation generally gave rise to rights; rather, we focused our analysis on a specific statutory provision limiting “rent” to 30 percent of a tenant’s income. 479 U. S., at 430. Similarly, in Wilder, we held that health care providers had an enforceable right to reimbursement at “reasonable and adequate rates” as required by a particular provision in the Medicaid statute. 496 U. S., at 511-512. And in Suter v. Artist M., 503 U. S. 347 (1992), where we held that Title IV-E of the Social Security Act did not give the plaintiffs the right that they asserted, we again analyzed the claim in very specific terms: whether children had a right to have state authorities undertake “reasonable efforts to prevent removal of children from their homes and to facilitate reunification of families where removal had occurred.” Id., at 352 (footnote omitted). Finally, in Livadas, supra, at 134, we discerned in the structure of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) the very specific right of employees “to complete the collective-bargaining process and agree to an arbitration clause.” See 512 U. S., at 133, n. 27 (explaining that whether a claim founded on the NLRA is cognizable under § 1983 may depend on whether the claim stems from abridgment of a “protected individual interest”). We did not simply ask whether the NLRA created unspecified “rights.”

The Court of Appeals did not engage in such a methodical inquiry. As best we can tell, the Court of Appeals seemed to think that respondents had a right to require the Director of Arizona’s child support agency to bring the State’s program into substantial compliance with Title IV-D. But the requirement that a State operate its child support program in “substantial compliance” with Title IV-D was not intended to benefit individual children and custodial parents, and therefore it does not constitute a federal right. Far from creating an individual entitlement to services, the standard is simply a yardstick for the Secretary to measure the systemwide performance of a State’s Title IV-D program. Thus, the Secretary must look to the aggregate services provided by the State, not to whether the needs of any particular person have been satisfied. A State substantially complies with Title IV-D when it provides most mandated services (such as enforcement of support obligations) in only 75 percent of the cases reviewed during the federal audit period. 45 CFR § 305.20(a)(3)(iii) (1995). States must aim to establish paternity in 90 percent of all eligible cases, but may satisfy considerably lower targets so long as their efforts are steadily improving. 42 U. S. C. § 652(g). It is clear, then, that even when a State is in “substantial compliance” with Title IV-D, any individual plaintiff might still be among the 10 or 25 percent of persons whose needs ultimately go unmet. Moreover, even upon a finding of substantial noncompliance, the Secretary can merely reduce the State’s AFDC grant by up to five percent; she cannot, by force of her own authority, command the State to take any particular action or to provide any services to certain individuals. In short, the substantial compliance standard is designed simply to trigger penalty provisions that increase the frequency of audits and reduce the State’s AFDC grant by a maximum of five percent. As such, it does not give rise to individual rights.

The Court of Appeals erred not only in finding that individuals have an enforceable right to substantial compliance, but also in taking a blanket approach to determining whether Title IV-D creates rights. It is readily apparent that many other provisions of that multifaceted statutory scheme do not fit our traditional three criteria for identifying statutory rights. To begin with, many provisions, like the “substantial compliance” standard, are designed only to guide the State in structuring its systemwide efforts at enforcing support obligations. These provisions may ultimately benefit individuals who are eligible for Title IV-D services, but only indirectly. For example, Title IV-D lays out detailed requirements for the State’s data processing system. Among other things, this system must sort information into standardized data elements specified by the Secretary; transmit information electronically to the State’s AFDC system to monitor family eligibility for financial assistance; maintain the data necessary to meet federal reporting requirements; and provide for the electronic transfer of funds for purposes of income withholding and interstate collections. 42 U. S. C. §654a (1994 ed., Supp. II); 45 CFR § 307.10 (1995). Obviously, these complex standards do not give rise to individualized rights to computer services. They are simply intended to improve the overall efficiency of the States’ child support enforcement scheme.

The same reasoning applies to the staffing levels of the state agency, which respondents seem to claim are inadequate. App. 11 (Complaint ¶ 39) (alleging that delays in ease processing are attributable to “extraordinary staff shortages, inordinately high caseloads and unmanageable backlogs”). Title IV-D generally requires each participating State to establish a separate child support enforcement unit “which meets such staffing and organizational requirements as the Secretary may by regulation prescribe.” 42 U. S. C. § 654(3). The regulations, in turn, simply provide that each level of the State’s organization must have “sufficient staff” to fulfill specified functions. These mandates do not, however, give rise to federal rights. For one thing, the link between increased staffing and the services provided to any particular individual is far too tenuous to support the notion that Congress meant to give each and every Arizonan who is eligible for Title IV-D the right to have the State Department of Economic Security staffed at a “sufficient” level. Furthermore, neither the statute nor the regulation gives any guidance as to how large a staff would be “sufficient.” Cf. Suter, 503 U. S., at 360 (finding requirement of “reasonable efforts” unenforceable where there was “[n]o further statutory guidance ... as to how ‘reasonable efforts’ are to be measured”). Enforcement of such an undefined standard would certainly “strain judicial competence.” Livadas, 512 U. S., at 132.

We do not foreclose the possibility that some provisions of Title IV-D give rise to individual rights. The lower court did not separate out the particular rights it believed arise from the statutory scheme, and we think the complaint is less than clear in this regard. For example, respondent Madrid alleged that the state agency managed to collect some support payments from her ex-husband but failed to pass through the first $50 of each payment, to which she was purportedly entitled under the pre-1996 version of § 657(b)(1). App. 13 (Complaint ¶48). Although §657 may give her a federal right to receive a specified portion of the money collected on her behalf by Arizona, she did not explicitly request such relief in the complaint.

In any event, it is not at all apparent that respondents sought any relief more specific than a declaration that their “rights” were being violated and an injunction forcing Arizona’s child support agency to “substantially comply” with all of the provisions of Title IV-D. We think that this defect is best addressed by sending the case back for the District Court to construe the complaint in the first instance, in order to determine exactly what rights, considered in their most concrete, specific form, respondents are asserting. Only by manageably breaking down the complaint into specific allegations can the District Court proceed to determine whether any specific claim asserts an individual federal right.

B

Because we leave open the possibility that Title IV-D may give rise to some individually enforceable rights, we pause to consider petitioner’s final argument that no remand is warranted because the statute contains “a remedial scheme that is ‘sufficiently comprehensive ... to demonstrate congressional intent to preclude the remedy of suits under §1983.’” Wilder, 496 U. S., at 521 (quoting Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 20 (1981)). Because petitioner does not claim that any provision of Title IV-D expressly curtails §1983 actions, she must make the difficult showing that allowing § 1983 actions to go forward in these circumstances “would be inconsistent with Congress’ carefully tailored scheme.” Golden State, 493 U. S., at 107 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Only twice have we found a remedial scheme sufficiently comprehensive to supplant § 1983: in Sea Clammers, supra, and Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992 (1984). In Sea Clam-mers, we focused on the “unusually elaborate enforcement provisions” of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which placed at the disposal of the Environmental Protection Agency a panoply of enforcement options, including noncompliance orders, civil suits, and criminal penalties. 463 U. S., at 13. We emphasized that several provisions of the Act authorized private persons to initiate enforcement actions. Id., at 14, 20. We found it “hard to believe that Congress intended to preserve the § 1983 right of action when it created so many specific statutory remedies, including the two citizen-suit provisions.” Id., at 20. Likewise, in Smith, the review scheme in the Education of the Handicapped Act permitted aggrieved individuals to invoke “carefully tailored” local administrative procedures followed by federal judicial review. 468 U. S., at 1009. We reasoned that Congress could not possibly have wanted parents to skip these procedures and go straight to court by way of §1983, since that would have “rendered] superfluous most of the detailed procedural protections outlined in the statute.” Id., at 1011.

We have also stressed that a plaintiff’s ability to invoke § 1983 cannot be defeated simply by “[t]he availability of administrative mechanisms to protect the plaintiff’s interests.” Golden State, supra, at 106. Thus, in Wright, we rejected the argument that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development’s “generalized powers” to audit local public housing authorities, to enforce annual contributions contracts, and to cut off federal funding demonstrated a congressional intention to prevent public housing tenants from using § 1983 to enforce their rights under the federal Housing Act. 479 U. S., at 428. We reached much the same conclusion in Wilder, where the Secretary of Health and Human Services had power to reject state Medicaid plans or to withhold federal funding to States whose plans did not comply with federal law. 496 U. S., at 521. Even though in both cases these oversight powers were accompanied by limited state grievance procedures for individuals, we found that §1983 was still available. Wright, supra, at 427-428; Wilder, supra, at 523.

The enforcement scheme that Congress created in Title IV-D is far more limited than those in Sea Clammers and Smith. Unlike the federal programs at issue in those cases, Title IV-D contains no private remedy — either judicial or administrative — through which aggrieved persons can seek redress. The only way that Title IV-D assures that States live up to their child support plans is through the Secretary’s oversight. The Secretary can audit only for “substantial compliance” on a programmatic basis. Furthermore, up to 25 percent of eligible children and custodial parents can go without most of the services enumerated in Title IV-D before the Secretary can trim a State’s AFDC grant. These limited powers to audit and cut federal funding closely resemble those powers at issue in Wilder and Wright. Although counsel for the Secretary suggested at oral argument that the Secretary “has the same right under a contract as any other party to seek specific performance,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 49, this possibility was not developed in the briefs. Even assuming the Secretary’s authority to sue for specific performance, Title IV-D’s administrative enforcement arsenal would not compare to those in Sea Clammers and Smith, especially if, as the Government further contended, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 49-50, no private actor would have standing to force the Secretary to bring suit for specific performance. To the extent that Title IV-D may give rise to individual rights, therefore, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Secretary’s oversight powers are not comprehensive enough to close the door on § 1983 liability. 68 F. 3d, at 1151-1156.

IV

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to remand to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Kennedy joins,

concurring.

I agree with the Court that under the test set forth in Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418, 423 (1987), and Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn., 496 U. S. 498, 509 (1990), 42 U. S. C. § 1983 does not permit individual beneficiaries of Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, as added, 88 Stat. 2351, and as amended, 42 U. S. C. §§ 651-669b (1994 ed., Supp. II), to bring suit challenging a State’s failure to achieve “substantial compliance” with the requirements of Title IV-D. That conclusion makes it unnecessary to reach the question whether § 1983 ever authorizes the beneficiaries of a federal-state funding and spending agreement — such as Title IV-D — to bring suit.

As we explained in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981), such an agreement is “in the nature of a contract,” id., at 17: The State promises to provide certain services to private individuals, in exchange for which the Federal Government promises to give the State funds. In contract law, when such an arrangement is made (A promises to pay B money, in exchange for which B promises to provide services to C), the person who receives the benefit of the exchange of promises between the two others (C) is called a third-party beneficiary. Until relatively recent times, the third-party beneficiary was generally regarded as a stranger to the contract, and could not sue upon it; that is to say, if, in the example given above, B broke his promise and did not provide services to C, the only person who could enforce the promise in court was the other party to the contract, A. See 1 W. Story, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts 549-550 (4th ed. 1856). This appears to have been the law at the time § 1983 was enacted. See Brief for Council of State Governments et al. as Amici Curiae 10-11, and n. 6 (citing sources). If so, the ability of persons in respondents’ situation to compel a State to make good on its promise to the Federal Government was not a “righ[t] . . . secured by the ... laws” under § 1983. While it is of course true that newly enacted laws are automatically embraced within § 1983, it does not follow that the question of what rights those new laws (or, for that matter, old laws) secure is to be determined according to modern notions rather than according to the understanding of §1983 when it was enacted. Allowing third-party beneficiaries of commitments to the Federal Government to sue is certainly a vast expansion.

It must be acknowledged that Wright and Wilder permitted beneficiaries of federal-state contracts to sue under § 1983, but the argument set forth above was not raised. I am not prepared without further consideration to reject the possibility that third-party-beneficiary suits simply do not lie. I join the Court’s opinion because, in ruling against respondents under the Wright/Wilder test, it leaves that possibility open.

       After the Court of Appeals rendered its decision, Congress amended Title IV-D in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105. Except where otherwise noted, we refer to the amended version of Title IV-D throughout this opinion.

       For the deficiencies in Arizona’s child support enforcement system, see principally OCSE, Audit Division Report No. AZ-85-PR, Program Results Audit of the State of Arizona Child Support Enforcement Program, October 1,1984-September 30,1986 (June 25,1987); OCSE, Audit Division Report No. AZ-86-PR/PM, Program Results/Performanee Measurements Audit, State of Arizona, Child Support Enforcement Program, October 1, 1985-September 30, 1986 (June 9, 1989); OCSE, Audit Division Report No. AZ-90-AA, Comprehensive Annual Audit, State of Arizona (Sept. 30, 1991) (covering calendar year 1989). Arizona eventually achieved substantial compliance in each category found deficient in these audits, although not always in a timely manner. See, e. g., Letter from Jo Anne B. Barnhart, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Dept, of HHS, to Linda Moore-Cannon, Director, Arizona Dept, of Economic Security (Mar. 2, 1992) (reducing Arizona’s AFDC funding by one percent for the period between July 1, 1988, and December 31, 1988, due to the State’s failure to implement its Parent Locator Service in conformity with its corrective action plan).

       Compare Wehunt v. Ledbetter, 875 F. 2d 1558 (CA11 1989) (holding that Title IV-D was not enacted for the especial benefit of AFDC families, and so it does not create enforceable rights under §1983), cert. denied, 494 U. S. 1027 (1990), with Carelli v. Howser, 923 F. 2d 1208 (CA6 1991) (holding that Title IV-D creates rights that are enforceable under § 1983, but that the Secretary's oversight power forecloses a § 1983 remedy), with Albiston v. Maine Comm’r of Human Servs., 7 F. 3d 258 (CA1 1993) (holding that AFDC recipients have an enforceable right to prompt disbursement of their child support payments under Title IV-D), and with Howe v. Ellenbecker, 8 F. 3d 1258 (CA8 1993) (holding that Title IV-D creates rights that are enforceable under § 1983), cert. denied, 511 U. S. 1005 (1994).
      Petitioner makes two further arguments in her briefs on the merits. She first contends that the Eleventh Amendment strips federal courts of jurisdiction over a § 1983 cause of action against state officials to enforce Title IV-D. Next, she asks us to overrule Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), where we held that § 1983 provides a remedy for violations of federal statutes. We decline to address these questions which were neither raised nor decided below, and were not presented in the petition for certiorari. This Court’s Rule 14.1(a).