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529US3

Unit: $U59

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 765 (2000)

791

Stevens, J., dissenting

“We can perceive no reason for extending it so as to
exempt a business carried on by a state from the other-
wise applicable provisions of an act of Congress, all-
embracing in scope and national in its purpose, which is
as capable of being obstructed by state as by individual
action. Language and objectives so plain are not to be
thwarted by resort to a rule of construction whose pur-
pose is but to resolve doubts, and whose application in
Id., at
the circumstances would be highly artiﬁcial.”
186–187.1

The False Claims Act is also all-embracing in scope,
national
in its purpose, and as capable of being violated
by state as by individual action.2
It was enacted during
the Civil War, shortly after a congressional committee

1 The difference between the post-1986 lens through which the Court
views sovereign immunity issues, on the one hand, and the actual intent
of Congress in statutes like the one before us today, on the other hand, is
well illustrated by the congressional rejection of the holdings in Hoffman
v. Connecticut Dept. of Income Maintenance, 492 U. S. 96 (1989), and
In those cases,
United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30 (1992).
the Court refused to ﬁnd the necessary unequivocal waiver of sovereign
immunity against both the States and the Federal Government in § 106(c)
of the Bankruptcy Code.

Congress, however, thought differently: “In enacting section 106(c), Con-
gress intended . . . to make the States subject to a money judgment. But
the Supreme Court in Hoffman v. Connecticut Department of Income
Maintenance, 492 U. S. 96 (1989), held [otherwise.]
In using such a nar-
row construction, the Court . . . did not ﬁnd in the text of the statute an
‘unmistakenly clear’ intent of Congress to waive sovereign immunity . . . .
The Court applied this reasoning in United States v. Nordic Village, Inc.”
See 140 Cong. Rec. 27693 (1994). Congress therefore overruled both of
those decisions by enacting the current version of 11 U. S. C. § 106.

2 It is thus at the opposite pole from the statute construed in Wilson v.
Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653 (1979), which held that the term “white per-
son” did not include the State of Iowa because “it is apparent that in
adopting § 22 Congress had in mind only disputes arising in Indian country,
Id., at 668.
disputes that would not arise in or involve any of the States.”