798 VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS Stevens, J., dissenting
"presumption" does not quite do the heavy lifting the Court would like it to do. What's more, the doctrinal origins of that "presumption" meant only that the enacting sovereign was not normally thought to be a statutory "person." See, e. g., United States v. California, 297 U. S., at 186 ("[T]he canon of construction that a sovereign is presumptively not intended to be bound by its own statute unless named in it . . . has its historical basis in the English doctrine that the Crown is unaffected by acts of Parliament not specifically directed against it. The presumption is an aid to consistent construction of statutes of the enacting sovereign when their purpose is in doubt" (emphasis added)); see also United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S., at 275; United States v. Fox, 94 U. S. 315, 321 (1877); Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 73 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting). The reason for presuming that an enacting sovereign does not intend to authorize litigation against itself simply does not apply to federal statutes that apply equally to state agencies and private entities. Finally, the "affirmative showing" the Court would require to demonstrate that the word "person" includes States, ante, at 781, is plainly found in the statutory text discussed above.
The Court's first textual argument is based on the fact that the definition of the term "person" included in § 3733's CID provision expressly includes States. "The presence of such a definitional provision in § 3733," the Court argues, "together with the absence of such a provision from the definitional provisions contained in § 3729 . . . suggests that States are not 'persons' for purposes of qui tam liability under § 3729." Ante, at 784. Leaving aside the fact that § 3733's definition actually cuts in the opposite direction, see supra, at 795-796, this argument might carry some weight if the definitional provisions in § 3729 included some definition of "person" but simply neglected to mention States. But the definitional provisions in § 3729 do not in-
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