Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-404_i5ea.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner 
control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by
Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the 
general  government.”    Id.,  at  436.  The  Court  thus  inter-
preted the Constitution as prohibiting States from interfer-
ing with or controlling the operations of the Federal Gov-
ernment. 

Over time this constitutional doctrine, often called the in-
tergovernmental  immunity  doctrine,  evolved.    Originally
we understood it as barring any state law whose “effect . . . 
was or might be to increase the cost to the Federal Govern-
ment of performing its functions,” including laws that im-
posed costs on federal contractors.  United States v. County 
of Fresno, 429 U. S. 452, 460 (1977).  We later came to un-
derstand  the  doctrine,  however,  as  prohibiting  state  laws 
that either “regulat[e] the United States directly or discrim-
inat[e] against the Federal Government or those with whom
it deals” (e.g., contractors).  North Dakota v. United States, 
495  U. S.  423,  435  (1990)  (plurality  opinion)  (emphasis 
added); id., at 444 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (not-
ing that “[a]ll agree” with this aspect of the plurality opin-
ion); see also Baker, 485 U. S., at 523; County of Fresno, 429 
U. S., at 462–463.  As to the latter, discrimination-related 
prohibition, a state law is thus no longer unconstitutional
just  because  it  indirectly  increases  costs  for  the  Federal 
Government,  so  long  as  the  law  imposes  those  costs  in  a 
neutral, nondiscriminatory way.

We have said that a state law discriminates against the
Federal Government or its contractors if it “single[s them]
out”  for  less  favorable  “treatment,”  Washington  v.  United 
States, 460 U. S. 536, 546 (1983), or if it regulates them un-
favorably on some basis related to their governmental “sta-
tus,” North Dakota, 495 U. S., at 438 (plurality opinion).

Washington’s  law  violates  these  principles  by  singling
out the Federal Government for unfavorable treatment.  On