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Opinion of the Court
day-to-day responsibility for administering its complex provisions," Brief for Respondents 10, and thereby makes "state officials the unwilling implementors of federal policy," id., at 11.3 South Carolina emphasizes that the DPPA requires the State's employees to learn and apply the Act's substantive restrictions, which are summarized above, and notes that these activities will consume the employees' time and thus the State's resources. South Carolina further notes that the DPPA's penalty provisions hang over the States as a potential punishment should they fail to comply with the Act.
We agree with South Carolina's assertion that the DPPA's provisions will require time and effort on the part of state employees, but reject the State's argument that the DPPA violates the principles laid down in either New York or Printz. We think, instead, that this case is governed by our decision in South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S. 505 (1988). In Baker, we upheld a statute that prohibited States from issuing unregistered bonds because the law "regulate[d] state activities," rather than "seek[ing] to control or influence the manner in which States regulate private parties." Id., at 514-515. We further noted:
"The [National Governor's Association] nonetheless contends that § 310 has commandeered the state legislative and administrative process because many state legislatures had to amend a substantial number of statutes in order to issue bonds in registered form and because state officials had to devote substantial effort to determine how best to implement a registered bond system. Such 'commandeering' is, however, an inevitable consequence of regulating a state activity. Any federal regulation demands compliance. That a State wishing to en-3 South Carolina has not asserted that it does not participate in the interstate market for personal information. Rather, South Carolina asks that the DPPA be invalidated in its entirety, even as it is applied to the States acting purely as commercial sellers.
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