178
Opinion of the Court
Wyoming, 460 U. S., at 242, n. 17; Transportation Union v. Long Island R. Co., 455 U. S., at 684, n. 9; National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S., at 853. The Court has more recently departed from this approach. See, e. g., South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S., at 512-513; Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S., at 556-557. But whether or not a particularly strong federal interest enables Congress to bring state governments within the orbit of generally applicable federal regulation, no Member of the Court has ever suggested that such a federal interest would enable Congress to command a state government to enact state regulation. No matter how powerful the federal interest involved, the Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate. The Constitution instead gives Congress the authority to regulate matters directly and to pre-empt contrary state regulation. Where a federal interest is sufficiently strong to cause Congress to legislate, it must do so directly; it may not conscript state governments as its agents.
Second, the United States argues that the Constitution does, in some circumstances, permit federal directives to state governments. Various cases are cited for this proposition, but none support it. Some of these cases discuss the well established power of Congress to pass laws enforceable in state courts. See Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947); Palmore v. United States, 411 U. S. 389, 402 (1973); see also Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 57 (1912); Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136-137 (1876). These cases involve no more than an application of the Supremacy Clause's provision that federal law "shall be the supreme Law of the Land," enforceable in every State. More to the point, all involve congressional regulation of individuals, not congressional requirements that States regulate. Federal statutes enforceable in state courts do, in a sense, direct state judges to enforce them, but this sort of federal "direction" of state judges is mandated by the text of the Suprem-
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