Cite as: 529 U. S. 765 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
presumption is "particularly applicable where it is claimed that Congress has subjected the States to liability to which they had not been subject before." Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 64 (1989); Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653, 667 (1979). The presumption is, of course, not a "hard and fast rule of exclusion," Cooper Corp., supra, at 604-605, but it may be disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statutory intent to the contrary. See International Primate Protection League v. Administrators of Tulane Ed. Fund, 500 U. S. 72, 83 (1991).
As the historical context makes clear, and as we have often observed, the FCA was enacted in 1863 with the principal goal of "stopping the massive frauds perpetrated by large [private] contractors during the Civil War." United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 309 (1976); see also United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537, 547 (1943).10 Its
demand that something more than mere use of the word "person" demonstrate the federal intent to authorize unconsented private suit against them. In any event, Justice Stevens fought and lost this battle in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 (1989), in which the Court applied the presumption to a federal statute when the "person" at issue was a State. See id., at 64; but see id., at 73 (Brennan, J., dissenting, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.). Moreover, Justice Stevens actually joined the Court's opinion in Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653 (1979), in which the Court likewise applied the presumption to a federal statute in a case involving a State. See id., at 667. (Wilson is omitted from the dissent's discussion of "[c]ases decided before 1986," which it claims "uniformly support" its reading of the statute. Post, at 790.)
10 The dissent contends that the FCA was "intended to cover the full range of fraudulent acts, including those perpetrated by States." Post, at 793, and n. 4 (quoting United States v. Neifert-White Co., 390 U. S. 228, 232 (1968); Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 592 (1958); H. R. Rep. No. 99-660, p. 18 (1985)). The sources the dissent quotes, however, support its contention only as far as the comma. They stand for the un-objectionable proposition (codified in § 3729(c)) that the FCA was intended to cover all types of fraud, not for the additional proposition that the FCA was intended to cover all types of fraudsters, including States.
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