Cite as: 521 U. S. 898 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
the official's office. . . . As such, it is no different from a suit against the State itself." Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 71 (1989). And the same must be said of a directive to an official in his or her official capacity. To say that the Federal Government cannot control the State, but can control all of its officers, is to say nothing of significance.15 Indeed, it merits the description "empty formalistic reasoning of the highest order," post, at 952. By resorting to this, the dissent not so much distinguishes New York as disembowels it.16
Finally, the Government puts forward a cluster of arguments that can be grouped under the heading: "The Brady Act serves very important purposes, is most efficiently ad-15 Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, post, at 955-956, n. 16, and 965, the distinction in our Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence between States and municipalities is of no relevance here. We long ago made clear that the distinction is peculiar to the question of whether a governmental entity is entitled to Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, see Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978); we have refused to apply it to the question of whether a governmental entity is protected by the Constitution's guarantees of federalism, including the Tenth Amendment, see National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833, 855-856, n. 20 (1976) (overruled on other grounds by Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528 (1985)); see also Garcia, supra (resolving Tenth Amendment issues in suit brought by local transit authority).
16 The dissent's suggestion, post, at 964, n. 27, that New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992), itself embraced the distinction between congressional control of States (impermissible) and congressional control of state officers (permissible) is based upon the most egregious wrenching of statements out of context. It would take too much to reconstruct the context here, but by examining the entire passage cited, id., at 178-179, the reader will readily perceive the distortion. The passage includes, for example, the following:
"Additional cases cited by the United States discuss the power of federal courts to order state officials to comply with federal law. . . . Again, however, the text of the Constitution plainly confers this authority on the federal courts . . . . The Constitution contains no analogous grant of authority to Congress." Id., at 179.
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