South Dakota v. Dole’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
418 federal appellate · 117 district · 114 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,233 later decisions (39 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Will v. Michigan Department of State Police (1989), Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (1996)
418 federal appellate · 117 district · 114 state decisions — followed in 20 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedMosby v. Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis County (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 23 U.S.C. § 101 (America Fast Forward Financing Innovation Act of 2012) · 23 U.S.C. § 158
Relies on Buckley v. Valeo · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Craig v. Boren · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman · Massachusetts v. Mellon
Cited together with New York v. United States · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman · College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board · Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon · Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,233 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In considering whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve general public purposes, courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Congress.”
75 later decisions quote this exact passage“[I]f Congress desires to condition the States' receipt of federal funds, it 'must do so unambiguously....'”
31 later decisions quote this exact passage“[the Court's] decisions have recognized that in some circumstances the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which 'pressure turns into compulsion,'”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.