Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515441096 Page: 13 Date Filed: 06/04/2020 No. 20-50407 a. Generally, state sovereign immunity precludes suits against state officials in their official capacities. See City of Austin v. Paxton, 943 F.3d 993, 997 (5th Cir. 2019). The important case of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), is an exception to that baseline rule, but it permits only “suits for prospective . . . relief against state officials acting in violation of federal law.” Frew ex rel. Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431, 437 (2004) (emphasis added). It does not sanction suits targeted at state-law violations. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 124–25 (1984). To be sued, state officials must “have ‘some connection’ to the state law’s enforcement,” Air Evac EMS, Inc. v. Tex. Dep’t of Ins., 851 F.3d 507, 517 (5th Cir. 2017), which ensures that “the suit is [not] effectively against the state itself,” In re Abbott, 956 F.3d 696, 708 (5th Cir. 2020). The precise scope of the “some connection” requirement is still unsettled, 21 but the requirement traces its lineage to Young itself. 22 We do know, though, that it is not enough that the official have a “general duty to see that the laws of the state are implemented.” Morris, 739 F.3d at 746 (emphasis added). And “[i]f the official sued is not statutorily tasked with enforcing the challenged law, then the requisite Our decisions are not a model of clarity on what “constitutes a sufficient connection to enforcement.” Austin, 943 F.3d at 999 (quotation marks and alteration omitted). In Okpalobi v. Foster, 244 F.3d 405, 414–15 (5th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (quotation marks omitted), a plurality recognized that Young mandates that the state officials “have some connection with the enforcement of the act in question or be specially charged with the duty to enforce the statute and be threatening to exercise that duty.” But a later panel declined to follow that “specially charged” requirement, specifically because it determined that Okpalobi was not binding precedent. See K.P. v. LeBlanc, 627 F.3d 115, 124 (5th Cir. 2010). A separate panel quoted a different part of Okpalobi as setting forth the proper standard. See Morris v. Livingston, 739 F.3d 740, 746 (5th Cir. 2014). 21 See Young, 209 U.S. at 157 (“[I]t is plain that [a state] officer must have some connection with the enforcement of the [relevant state law], or else [the suit] is merely making him a party as a representative of the state, and thereby attempting to make the state a party.” (emphasis added)). 22 13