514
O'Connor, J., dissenting
The operation of the common bond provision does not likewise denote a congressional desire to legislate against competition. First, the common bond requirement does not purport to restrict credit unions from becoming large, nationwide organizations, as might be expected if the provision embodied a congressional concern with the competitive consequences of credit union growth. See Brief for Petitioner NCUA 25-26 (Navy Federal Credit Union has 1.6 million members; American Airlines Federal Credit Union has 157,000 members); see also S. Rep. No. 555, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1934) (citing "employees of the United States Government" as a "specific group with a common bond of occupation or association").
More tellingly, although the common bond provision applies to all credit unions, the restriction operates against credit unions individually: The common bond requirement speaks only to whether a particular credit union's membership can include a given group of customers, not to whether credit unions in general can serve that group. Even if a group of would-be customers does not share the requisite bond with a particular credit union, nothing in the common bond provision prevents that same group from joining a different credit union that is within the same "neighborhood, community, or rural district" or with whose members the group shares an adequate "occupation[al] or association[al]" connection. 12 U. S. C. § 1759. Also, the group could conceivably form its own credit union. In this sense, the common bond requirement does not limit credit unions collectively from serving any customers, nor does it bar any customers from being served by credit unions.
In Data Processing, ICI, and Clarke, by contrast, the statutes operated against national banks generally, prohibiting all banks from competing in a particular market: Banks in general were barred from providing a specific type of service (Data Processing and ICI), or from providing services at a particular location (Clarke). Thus, whereas in Data Proc-
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