Cite as: 529 U. S. 765 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
that § 3730(a) does not make any distinction between possible defendants against whom the Attorney General may bring an action, the most normal inference to draw is that qui tam actions may be brought by relators against the same category of "persons" that may be sued by the Attorney General.
To recapitulate, it is undisputed that (under the CID provision) a State is a "person" who may violate § 3729; that a State is a "person" who may be named as a defendant in an action brought by the Attorney General; and that a State is a "person" who may bring a qui tam action on behalf of the United States. It therefore seems most natural to read the adjacent uses of the term "person" in §§ 3729, 3730(a), 3730(b), and 3733 to cover the same category of defendants. See United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S., at 606 ("It is hardly credible that Congress used the term 'person' in different senses in the same sentence"). And it seems even more natural to read the single word "person" (describing who may commit a violation under § 3729) to have one consistent meaning regardless of whether the action against that violator is brought under § 3730(a) or under § 3730(b). See Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U. S. 135, 143 (1994) ("A term appearing in several places in a statutory text is generally read the same way each time it appears. We have even stronger cause to construe a single formulation . . . the same way each time it is called into play" (citation omitted)). Absent powerful arguments to the contrary, it should follow that a State may be named as a defendant in an action brought by an assignee of the United States. Rather than pointing to any such powerful arguments, however, the Court comes to a contrary conclusion on the basis of an inapplicable presumption and rather strained inferences drawn from three different statutory provisions.
The Court's principal argument relies on "our longstanding interpretive presumption that 'person' does not include the sovereign." Ante, at 780. As discussed earlier, that
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