900
Syllabus
powers within the Necessary and Proper Clause's meaning. Cf. New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 166. The Supremacy Clause does not help the dissent, since it makes "Law of the Land" only "Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance [of the Constitution]." Art. VI, cl. 2. Pp. 923-925.
(f) Finally, and most conclusively in these cases, the Court's jurisprudence makes clear that the Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. See, e. g., New York, supra, at 188. The attempts of the Government and Justice Stevens' dissent to distinguish New York—on grounds that the Brady Act's background-check provision does not require state legislative or executive officials to make policy; that requiring state officers to perform discrete, ministerial federal tasks does not diminish the state or federal officials' accountability; and that the Brady Act is addressed to individual CLEOs while the provisions invalidated in New York were directed to the State itself—are not persuasive. A "balancing" analysis is inappropriate here, since the whole object of the law is to direct the functioning of the state executive, and hence to compromise the structural framework of dual sovereignty; it is the very principle of separate state sovereignty that such a law offends. See, e. g., New York, supra, at 187. Pp. 925-933. 2. With the Act's background-check and implicit receipt-of-forms requirements invalidated, the Brady Act requirements that CLEOs destroy all Brady Forms and related records, § 922(s)(6)(B)(i), and give would-be purchasers written statements of the reasons for determining their ineligibility to receive handguns, § 922(s)(6)(C), require no action whatsoever on the part of CLEOs such as petitioners, who are not voluntary participants in administration of the federal scheme. As to them, these provisions are not unconstitutional, but simply inoperative. Pp. 933-934. 3. The Court declines to address the severability question briefed and argued by the parties: whether firearms dealers remain obliged to forward Brady Forms to CLEOs, §§ 922(s)(1)(A)(i)(III) and (IV), and to wait five business days thereafter before consummating a firearms sale, § 922(s)(1)(A)(ii). These provisions burden only dealers and firearms purchasers, and no plaintiff in either of those categories is before the Court. P. 935.
66 F. 3d 1025, reversed.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. O’Connor, J., post, p. 935, and Thomas, J., post, p. 936, filed concurring opinions. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and
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