Cite as: 529 U. S. 765 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
"We can perceive no reason for extending it so as to exempt a business carried on by a state from the otherwise applicable provisions of an act of Congress, all-embracing in scope and national in its purpose, which is as capable of being obstructed by state as by individual action. Language and objectives so plain are not to be thwarted by resort to a rule of construction whose purpose is but to resolve doubts, and whose application in the circumstances would be highly artificial." Id., at 186-187.1
The False Claims Act is also all-embracing in scope, national in its purpose, and as capable of being violated by state as by individual action.2 It was enacted during the Civil War, shortly after a congressional committee
1 The difference between the post-1986 lens through which the Court views sovereign immunity issues, on the one hand, and the actual intent of Congress in statutes like the one before us today, on the other hand, is well illustrated by the congressional rejection of the holdings in Hoffman v. Connecticut Dept. of Income Maintenance, 492 U. S. 96 (1989), and United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30 (1992). In those cases, the Court refused to find the necessary unequivocal waiver of sovereign immunity against both the States and the Federal Government in § 106(c) of the Bankruptcy Code.
Congress, however, thought differently: "In enacting section 106(c), Congress intended . . . to make the States subject to a money judgment. But the Supreme Court in Hoffman v. Connecticut Department of Income Maintenance, 492 U. S. 96 (1989), held [otherwise.] In using such a narrow construction, the Court . . . did not find in the text of the statute an 'unmistakenly clear' intent of Congress to waive sovereign immunity . . . . The Court applied this reasoning in United States v. Nordic Village, Inc." See 140 Cong. Rec. 27693 (1994). Congress therefore overruled both of those decisions by enacting the current version of 11 U. S. C. § 106.
2 It is thus at the opposite pole from the statute construed in Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653 (1979), which held that the term "white person" did not include the State of Iowa because "it is apparent that in adopting § 22 Congress had in mind only disputes arising in Indian country, disputes that would not arise in or involve any of the States." Id., at 668.
791
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