Whether a state's chief election officer may invoke sovereign immunity solely because local officials carry out day-to-day election administration duties, or whether the state official's authority over enforcement of the entire statutory scheme is sufficient to trigger Ex parte Young's exception

QUESTION PRESENTED Under Ex parte Young’s exception to state sovereign immunity, a state official is suable in an action for prospective relief from enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional state law so long as, “by virtue of his office, [he] has some connection with the enforcement of the” statute. 209 U.S. 123, 157 (1908). The category of state officials that may be sued under Ex parte Young thus includes those “who may or must take enforcement actions” with respect to the challenged law. Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 142 S. Ct. 522, 535 (2021); Id. at 544. Petitioners challenged Texas’s signaturecomparison procedure for mail-in ballots on federal constitutional and statutory grounds, and named the Texas Secretary of State as a defendant. Although local officials carry out day-to-day tasks associated with the administration of elections, the Secretary of State is Texas’s “chief election officer” and is charged with vast responsibilities and authority to enforce Texas election law, including duties to oversee and control the administration of elections in Texas. In the decision below, the Fifth Circuit held that “the Secretary’s general duties under the [Texas Election] Code” were insufficient to satisfy Ex parte Young as to the provisions of the Code challenged by Petitioners. App.7a. The question presented is whether, in a suit seeking prospective relief relating to the enforcement of particular provisions of Texas’s election law, Texas’s chief election officer may invoke sovereign immunity solely because local officials carry out those provisions day-to-day, or whether a state official’s ii authority over enforcement of the entire statutory scheme is sufficient to trigger Ex parte Young’s exception, as the Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits as well as this Court hold.