828
Opinion of the Court
convincing evidence of legislative purpose, that § 1341 does not act as a restriction upon suits by the United States to protect itself and its instrumentalities from unconstitutional state exactions." 385 U. S., at 358 (footnotes omitted). In all the District Court and Court of Appeals cases cited in Department of Employment, the United States was either the sole plaintiff or a co-plaintiff. The United States had joined as co-plaintiff with the Red Cross in Department of Employment, arguing that the Red Cross was a federal instrumentality immune from state taxation, and we held that the Tax Injunction Act did not deprive the District Court of jurisdiction to decide the merits and order relief.
We have not before now considered whether federal instrumentalities fall under the exception to the Tax Injunction Act when they sue without the United States as co-plaintiff. In Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, we reasoned that when the United States is not a party, the mere fact that a party challenging the tax has interests closely related to those of the Federal Government is not enough, in and of itself, to avoid the bar of the Act. We considered whether the Act barred the exercise of federal judicial power when Indian tribes were challenging the lawfulness and constitutionality of certain state taxes. Although the tribes did not have formal designations as instrumentalities of the United States, we assumed the interests they asserted were aligned with the interests of the Federal Government. Reserving the question of the precise significance of a federal instrumentality designation, the Court said this congruence of interests was not sufficient to give the tribes an exemption from the Act. 425 U. S., at 471-472. We went on to find the tribes exempt from the Act only because a second federal statute granted sweeping federal-court jurisdiction where an Indian tribe was a party. Id., at 472 (citing 28 U. S. C. § 1362 (1976 ed.)). Moe is instructive here. As in Moe, the PCA's say their own mission is defined and controlled by federal law and that their interests are the
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