802
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
the State's law, but that does not make them policymakers for the State rather than the county. See ante, at 795-796, n. 10.
In emphasizing that the Monroe County Commission cannot instruct Sheriff Tate how to accomplish his law enforcement mission, see ante, at 790, the Court indirectly endorses the Eleventh Circuit's reasoning: Because under Alabama law a county commission does not possess law enforcement authority, a sheriff's law enforcement activities cannot represent county policy. See McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F. 3d 1573, 1578 (CA11 1996). There is an irony in this approach: If a county commission lacks law enforcement authority, then the sheriff becomes a state official; but if a county commission possesses such authority and directs the sheriff's activities, then the sheriff presumably would not be a final policy-maker in the realm of law enforcement, see St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U. S. 112, 127 (1988) (plurality opinion).
Moreover, in determining who makes county policy, this Court has never reasoned that all policymaking authority must be vested in a single body that either exercises that power or formally delegates it to another. Few local governments would fit that rigid model. Cf. id., at 124-125 ("The States have extremely wide latitude in determining the form that local government takes . . . . [O]ne may expect to find a rich variety of ways in which the power of government is distributed among a host of different officials and official bodies."). Nor does Monell support such a constricted view of the exercise of municipal authority; there, we spoke of § 1983 liability for acts by "lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy." 436 U. S., at 694 (emphasis added). In this case, Sheriff Tate is "the county's final policymaker in the area of law enforcement, not by virtue of delegation by the county's governing body but, rather, by virtue of the office to which the sheriff has been elected." Turner v. Upton Cty., 915 F. 2d 133, 136 (CA5 1990); see also Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F. 2d 556, 571 (CA1 1985); accord, Vera v. Tue, 73
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