source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Chief Justice Rehnquist Justice Ginsburg,

license: Public Domain

text:
    McMILLIAN v. MONROE COUNTY, ALABAMA
    No. 96-542.
    Argued March 18, 1997
    Decided June 2, 1997

      Bryan A. Stevenson argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Robert B. McDuff.

      Paul M. Smith argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Donald B. Verrilli, Thomas J. Per-relli, James W. Webb, Kendrick E. Webb, Daryl L. Masters, and Bart Harmon.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Acting Solicitor General Dellinger, Acting Assistant Attorney General Pinzler, Deputy Solicitor General Waxman, Lisa Schiavo Blatt, and Miriam R. Eisenstein; for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Steven R. Shapiro, Paul C. Saunders, Marc L. Fleischaker, Norman Red-lich, Barbara R. Arnwine, Thomas J. Henderson, Mitchell F. Dolin, and Robert A. Long, Jr.; and for the Southern States Police Benevolent Association by J. Michael McGuinness.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Jefferson County, Alabama, by Jeffrey M. Sewell and Charles S. Wagner; and for the National Association of Counties et al. by Richard Ruda and James I. Crowley.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner sued Monroe County, Alabama, under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, for allegedly unconstitutional actions taken by Monroe County Sheriff Tom Tate. If the sheriff’s actions constitute county “policy,” then the county is liable for them. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978). The parties agree that the sheriff is a “policymaker” for § 1983 purposes, but they disagree about whether he is a policymaker for Monroe County or for the State of Alabama. We hold that, as to the actions at issue here, Sheriff Tate represents the State of Alabama and is therefore not a county policymaker. We thus affirm the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of petitioner’s § 1983 claims against Monroe County.

I

In November 1986, Ronda Morrison was murdered in Monroe County, a sparsely populated county located in southwest Alabama. Petitioner and one Ralph Myers were indicted for this crime. Myers then pleaded guilty to a lesser offense and testified against petitioner at his trial. A jury convicted petitioner of capital murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death. After two remands, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed petitioner’s conviction, holding that the State had violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), by suppressing statements from Myers that contradicted his trial testimony and other exculpatory evidence. McMillian v. State, 616 So. 2d 933, 942-948 (1993). Thus, after spending six years in prison, petitioner was released.

He then brought this § 1983 lawsuit in the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama against respondent Monroe County and numerous officials, including the three men in charge of investigating the Morrison murder — Tom Tate, the Sheriff of Monroe County; Larry Ikner, an investigator with the District Attorney’s office in Monroe County; and Simon Benson, an investigator with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Only two of the officials were sued in their official capacities — Sheriff Tate and investigator Ikner — and it is only these official-capacity suits that concern us here. Petitioner principally alleged that Tate and Ikner, in their capacities as officials of Monroe County, not as officers of the State of Alabama, intimidated Myers into making false statements and suppressed exculpatory evidence. App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a-33a; McMillian v. Johnson, 878 F. Supp. 1473, 1486-1488 (MD Ala. 1995).

The District Court dismissed the claims against Monroe County and the claims against Tate and Ikner in their official capacities. The court held that “any unlawful acts of Defendants Tate and Ikner cannot be said to represent [Monroe] County’s policy,” because “an Alabama county has [no] authority to make policy in the area of law enforcement.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a. Petitioner appealed the District Court’s decision as to Sheriff Tate. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, agreeing with the District Court that “Sheriff Tate is not a final policymaker for Monroe County in the area of law enforcement, because Monroe County has no law enforcement authority.” McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F. 3d 1573, 1583 (1996). We granted certiorari, 519 U. S. 1025 (1996), and now affirm.

II

A

We held in Monell, 436 U. S., at 694, that a local government is liable under § 1983 for its policies that cause constitutional torts. These policies may be set by the government’s lawmakers, “or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy.” Ibid. A court’s task is to “identify those officials or governmental bodies who speak with final policymaking authority for the local governmental actor concerning the action alleged to have caused the particular constitutional or statutory violation at issue.” Jett v. Dallas Independent School Dist., 491 U. S. 701, 737 (1989). Here, the parties agree that Sheriff Tate has “final policy-making authority” in the area of law enforcement. They sharply disagree, however, about whether Alabama sheriffs are policymakers for the State or for the county when they act in a law enforcement capacity.

In deciding this dispute, our inquiry is guided by two principles. First, the question is not whether Sheriff Tate acts for Alabama or Monroe County in some categorical, “all or nothing” manner. Our cases on the liability of local governments under § 1983 instruct us to ask whether governmental officials are final policymakers for the local government in a particular area, or on a particular issue. See ibid, (court must identify “those officials who have the power to make official policy on a particular issue” (emphasis added)); id., at 738 (question is whether school district superintendent “possessed final policymaking authority in the area of employee transfers” (emphasis added)); St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U. S. 112, 123 (1988) (plurality opinion) (“[T]he challenged action must have been taken pursuant to a policy adopted by the official or officials responsible under state law for making policy in that area of the city’s business”). Thus, we are not seeking to make a characterization of Alabama sheriffs that will hold true for every type of official action they engage in. We simply ask whether Sheriff Tate represents the State or the county when he acts in a law enforcement capacity.

Second, our inquiry is dependent on an analysis of state law. Cf. Jett, supra, at 737 (“ ‘[W]hether a particular official has “final policymaking authority” is a question of state law’ ” (quoting, with original emphasis, Praprotnik, supra, at 123 (plurality opinion))); Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 475 U. S. 469, 483 (1986) (plurality opinion) (same). This is not to say that state law can answer the question for us by, for example, simply labeling as a state official an official who clearly makes county policy. But our understanding of the actual function of a governmental official, in a particular area, will necessarily be dependent on the definition of the official’s functions under relevant state law. Cf. Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Doe, 519 U. S. 425, 429, n. 5 (1997) (“[The] federal question can be answered only after considering the provisions of state law that define the agency’s character”).

B

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit determined that under Alabama law, a sheriff acting in his law enforcement capacity is not a policymaker for the county. Since the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals includes Alabama, we defer considerably to that court’s expertise in interpreting Alabama law. See Jett, supra, at 738 (“We think the Court of Appeals [for the Fifth Circuit], whose expertise in interpreting Texas law is greater than our own,- is in a better position to determine whether [the school district superintendent] possessed final policymaking authority in the area of employee transfers”); Pembaur, supra, at 484, n. 13 (“We generally accord great deference to the interpretation and application of state law by the courts of appeals”).

We begin with the Alabama Constitution, “the supreme law of the state.” Alexander v. State ex rel. Carver, 150 So. 2d 204, 208 (Ala. 1963). We agree with the Court of Appeals that the constitutional provisions concerning sheriffs, the historical development of those provisions, and the interpretation given them by the Alabama Supreme Court strongly support Monroe County’s contention that sheriffs represent the State, at least for some purposes. Alabama’s Constitution, adopted in 1901, states that “[t]he executive department shall consist of a governor, lieutenant governor, attorney-general, state auditor, secretary of state, state treasurer, superintendent of education, commissioner of agriculture and industries, and a sheriff for each county.” Ala. Const. of 1901, Art. V, § 112. This designation is especially important for our purposes, because although every Alabama Constitution has included sheriffs as constitutional officers and has provided for their election by county voters, see Ala. Const, of 1819, Art. IV, §24; Ala. Const, of 1861, Art. IV, §24; Ala. Const, of 1865, Art. VII, § 3; Ala. Const, of 1867, Art. V, §21; Ala. Const, of 1875, Art. V, §26; Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. V, § 138, sheriffs have not always been explicitly listed as members of the state “executive department.” Thus, the 1867 Constitution listed only the “governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and attorney general” as constituting “the executive department.” Ala. Const, of 1867, Art. V, § 1. This changed with the 1875 Constitution, when sheriffs and the superintendent of education were added to the list. Ala. Const, of 1875, Art. V, § l.

The framers of the 1901 Constitution took two significant steps in an attempt to solidify the place of sheriffs in the executive department, and to clarify that sheriffs were acting for the State when exercising their law enforcement functions. First, faced with reports that sheriffs were allowing mobs to abduct prisoners and lynch them, the framers made such “neglect” by sheriffs an impeachable offense. See Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. V, § 138 (“Whenever any prisoner is taken from jail, or from the custody of any sheriff or his deputy, and put to death, or suffers grievous bodily harm, owing to the neglect, connivance, cowardice, or other grave fault of the- sheriff, such sheriff may be impeached”); State ex rel. Garber v. Cazalas, 162 Ala. 210, 50 So. 296 (1909) (sheriff’s failure to close jail doors, resulting in lynching of prisoner, constitutes impeachable offense); M. McMillan, Constitutional Development in Alabama, 1789-1901, p. 338, n. 186 (1955) (impeachment provision resulted in “much progress made against lynching”).

Second, authority to impeach sheriffs was moved from the county courts to the State Supreme Court, because of “[t]he failure of county courts to punish sheriffs for neglect of duty.” Parker v. Amerson, 519 So. 2d 442, 443 (Ala. 1987). One of the primary purposes of this change, proposed by ex-Governor Thomas Goode Jones at the 1901 Convention, was “to augment the power of the Governor.” Id., at 444. After this change, the Governor could order the State Supreme Court, rather than the county court, to begin impeachment proceedings against a wayward sheriff, and would not have to worry that local support for the sheriff would annul his effort at centralized control. See ibid.; Strengthening the Power of the Executive, Address of Emmet O’Neal, Governor of Alabama, pp. 9-10 (Sept. 12, 1911) (new impeachment provision increases Governor’s control of sheriffs and “gives the Executive real power which is respected and feared”). Thus, sheriffs now share the same impeachment procedures as state legal officers and lower state court judges, Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. VII, § 174, rather than county and municipal officers, Ala. Const, of 1875, Art. VII, §3.

Critically for our case, the Alabama Supreme Court has interpreted these provisions and their historical background as evidence of “the framers’ intent to ensure that sheriffs be considered executive officers of the state.” Parker, 519 So. 2d, at 444. Based primarily on this understanding of the State Constitution, the court has held unequivocally that sheriffs are state officers, and that tort claims brought against sheriffs based on their official acts therefore constitute suits against the State, not suits against the sheriff’s county. Id., at 443-445. Thus, Alabama counties are not liable under a theory of respondeat superior for a sheriff’s official acts that are tortious. Id., at 442. The issues in Parker are strikingly similar to the ones in the present case, and that decision is therefore strong evidence in favor of the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that sheriffs act on behalf of the State, rather than the county, when acting in their law enforcement capacity.

Turning from the Alabama Constitution to the Alabama Code, the- relevant provisions are less compelling, but still support the conclusion of the Court of Appeals to some extent. Section 36-22-3 of the code sets out a sheriff’s duties. First, a sheriff must “attend upon” the state courts in his county, must “obey the lawful orders and directions” of those courts, and must “execute and return the process and orders” of any state court, even those outside his county. Ala. Code §§36-22-3(1), (2) (1991). Thus, judges (who are state officers, see Ala. Const, of 1901, Arndt. 328, § 6.01) may order the sheriff to take certain actions, even if the judge sits in a distant county. And under Ala. Code § 12-17-24 (1995), the presiding circuit judge “exercise[s] a general supervision” over the county sheriffs in his circuit, just as if the sheriffs are normal “court [i. e., state] employees,” see § 12-17-1.

Second, the sheriff must give to the county treasurer a sworn written statement detailing the funds he has received for the county since his last statement, and must pay these funds to the treasurer. §36-22-3(3). In contrast to the state judges, however, the county treasurer does not appear to have any statutory authority to direct the sheriff to take specific actions.

Third and most importantly, “[i]t shall be the duty of sheriffs in their respective counties, by themselves or deputies, to ferret out crime, to apprehend and arrest criminals and, insofar as within their power, to secure evidence of crimes in their counties and to present a report of the evidence so secured to the district attorney or assistant district attorney for the county.” §36-22-3(4). By this mandate, sheriffs are given complete authority to enforce the state criminal law in their counties. In contrast, the “powers and duties” of the counties themselves — creatures of the State who have only the powers granted to them by the State, Alexander, 150 So. 2d, at 206—do not include any provision in the area of law enforcement. Ala. Code § 11-3-11 (1989). Thus, the “governing body” .of the counties — which in every Alabama county is the county commission, see Calvert v. Cullman County Comm’n, 669 So. 2d 119 (Ala. 1995) (citing § 11— 1-5) — cannot instruct the sheriff how to ferret out crime, how to arrest a criminal, or how to secure evidence of a crime. And when the sheriff does secure such evidence, he has an obligation to share this information not with the county commission, but with the district attorney (a state official, see Hooks v. Hitt, 539 So. 2d 157, 159 (Ala. 1988)).

While the county commission thus has no direct control over how the sheriff fulfills his law enforcement duty, the Governor and the attorney general do have this kind of control. Pursuant to §36-22-5, they can direct the sheriff to investigate “any alleged violation of law in their counties.” And after “proceeding] promptly” to complete this investigation, the sheriff must “promptly” write a report to the state official in charge of the investigation, stating his findings, listing the witnesses he has secured, and summarizing what the witnesses can prove. Ibid. In addition, the salaries of all sheriffs are set by the state legislature, not by the county commissions. § 36-22-16.

To all of this, petitioner counters with four important provisions that cut in favor of the conclusion that sheriffs are county officials. First, the sheriff’s salary is paid “out of the county treasury.” Ibid. Second, the county provides the sheriff with equipment (including cruisers), supplies, lodging, and reimbursement for expenses, to the extent “reasonably needed for the proper and efficient conduct of the affairs of the sheriff’s office.” §36-22-18. Third, the sheriff’s jurisdiction is limited to the borders of his county. See, e. g., § 36-22-3(4) (“It shall be the duty of sheriffs in their respective counties ... to ferret out crime” (emphasis added)). Fourth, the sheriff is elected locally by the voters in his county (as he has been since Alabama’s 1819 Constitution). See Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. V, § 138; Ala. Const, of 1819, Art. IV, §24.

We do not find these provisions sufficient to tip the balance in favor of petitioner. The county’s payment of the sheriff’s salary does not translate into control over him, since the county neither has the authority to change his salary nor the discretion to refuse payment completely. The county commissions do appear to have the discretion to deny funds to the sheriffs for their operations beyond what is “reasonably necessary.” See Etowah County Comm’n v. Hayes, 569 So. 2d 397, 399 (Ala. 1990) (per curiam). But at most, this discretion would allow the commission to exert an attenuated and indirect influence over the sheriff’s operations.

Petitioner’s contention that sheriffs are county officials because “state policymakers” typically make policy for the entire State (without limits on their jurisdiction) and are typically elected on a statewide (not local) basis, surely has some force. But district attorneys and state judges are often considered (and in Alabama are considered) state officials, even though they, too, have limited jurisdictions and are elected locally. These characteristics are therefore consistent with an understanding of the 67 Alabama sheriffs as state officials who have been locally placed throughout the State, with an element of control granted to the officials and residents of the county that receives the sheriff’s services.

In sum, although there is some evidence in Alabama law that supports petitioner’s argument, we think the weight of the evidence is strongly on the side of the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals: Alabama sheriffs, when executing their law enforcement duties, represent the State of Alabama, not their counties. Cf. Praprotnik, 485 U. S., at 125 (“We are not, of course, predicting that state law will always speak with perfect clarity”); id., at 126-127 (“It may not be possible to draw an elegant line that will resolve this conundrum”).

C

Petitioner argues that this conclusion will create a lack of uniformity in Alabama and throughout the country. First, he argues that it is anomalous to have 67 different “state policymakers” in the person of Alabama’s 67 county sheriffs, all of whom may have different “state law enforcement policies” fn their counties. Second, he points out that most Federal Courts of Appeals have found county sheriffs to be county, not state, officials, and he implies that our affirmance of the Court of Appeals will either call those decisions into question or create an unacceptable patchwork of rulings as to §1983 liability of counties for the acts of their sheriffs. We reject both arguments: The first ignores the history of sheriffs, and the second ignores our Nation’s federal nature.

English sheriffs (or “shire-reeves”) were the King’s “reeves” (officers or agents) in the “shires” (counties), at least after the Norman Conquest in 1066. See C. Wigan & D. Meston, Mather on Sheriff and Execution Law 1-2 (1935). Although chosen locally by the shire’s inhabitants, the sheriff did “all the king’s business in the county,” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 328 (1765), and was “the keeper of the king’s peace,” id., at 332. See also Wigan & Meston, supra, at 2 (“It is this position of the Sheriff as the executive officer of the Crown which has all along been the outstanding characteristic of the office”).

As the basic forms of English government were transplanted in our country, it also became the common understanding here that the sheriff, though limited in jurisdiction to his county and generally elected by county voters, was in reality an officer of the State, and ultimately represented the State in fulfilling his duty to keep the peace. See, e.g., Wager, Introduction, in County Government Across the Nation 5 (P. Wager ed. 1950) (“The office of sheriff has an unbroken lineage from the Anglo-Saxon shire-reeve”)', 1 W. Anderson, A Treatise on the Law of Sheriffs, Coroners and Constables 5 (1941) (“In the exercise of executive and administrative functions, in conserving the public peace, in vindicating the law, and in preserving the rights of the government, he (the sheriff) represents the sovereignty of the State and he has no superior in his county”); R. Cooley, Handbook on the Law of Municipal Corporations 512 (1914) (“Sheriffs, coroners, clerks and other so-called county officers are properly state officers for the county. Their functions and duties pertain chiefly to the affairs of state in the county”); 3 J. Bouvier, Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 3058 (8th ed. 1914) (defining sheriff as “[a] county officer representing the executive or administrative power of the state within his county”).

This historical sketch indicates that the common law itself envisioned the possibility that state law enforcement “policies” might vary locally, as particular sheriffs adopted varying practices for arresting criminals or securing evidence. Thus, petitioner’s disagreement with the concept that “county sheriffs” may actually be state officials is simply a disagreement with the ancient understanding of what it has meant to be a sheriff.

Petitioner’s second concern is that under our holding here, sheriffs will be characterized differently in different States. But while it might be easier to decide cases arising under § 1983 and Monell if we insisted on a uniform, national characterization for all sheriffs, such a blunderbuss approach would ignore a crucial axiom of our government: the States have wide authority to set up their state and local governments as they wish. Understandably, then, the importance of counties and the nature of county government have varied historically from region to region, and from State to State. See, e. g., Wager, supra, at 5-8 (describing different systems of rural government that developed in the Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia colonies, which later resulted in counties having widely varying roles in the four regions); Martin, American County Government, in County Governments in an Era of Change 3-5 (P. Berman ed. 1993) (same); DeSantis & Renner, Governing the County, id., at 16-25 (describing varying levels of power currently exercised by counties in different States, and explaining how regional influences have resulted in different forms of county government in different States); id., at 19 (listing Alabama as 37th among the 50 States in amount of discretionary authority granted to its counties). Thus, since it is entirely natural that both the role of sheriffs and the importance of counties vary from State to State, there is no inconsistency created by court decisions that declare sheriffs to be county officers in one State, and not in another.

The final concern of petitioner and his amici is that state and local governments will manipulate the titles of local officials in a blatant effort to shield the local governments from liability. But such efforts are already foreclosed by our decision in Praprotnik. See 485 U. S., at 127 (plurality opinion) (“[Ejgregious attempts by local governments to insulate themselves from liability for unconstitutional policies are precluded” by allowing plaintiffs to prove that “a widespread practice” has been established by “‘custom or usage’ with the force of law”). And there is certainly no evidence of such manipulation here; indeed, the Alabama provisions that cut most strongly against petitioner’s position predate our decision in Monell by some time.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore

Affirmed.

Justice Ginsburg,

with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join,

dissenting.

Petitioner Walter McMillian, convicted of capital murder, spent nearly six years on Alabama’s Death Row. In 1993, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals determined that government officials, including the Sheriff of Monroe County, had concealed evidence of McMillian’s innocence. Based on that evidence, the court overturned the conviction. ' The State thereafter dismissed all charges against McMillian and released him from prison.

Seeking redress for an arrest and years of incarceration in violation of his federal constitutional rights, McMillian commenced the instant action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. He named as defendants both Monroe County and the County’s Sheriff, Tom Tate. McMillian alleged that Sheriff Tate withheld exculpatory evidence, generated false, inculpatory evidence, and subjected him to gross racial insults and relentless intimidation.

Sheriff Tate, it is uncontested, has “final policymaking authority” under Alabama law over matters of law enforcement in Monroe County. Our precedent instructs that, if the sheriff makes policy for the State, Monroe County would not be accountable, under § 1983, for that policy; if, on the other hand, the sheriff acts as law enforcement policymaker for Monroe County, then the county would be answerable under § 1983. See Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978).

Alabama has 67 county sheriffs, each elected, paid, and equipped locally, each with countywide, not statewide, authority. Unlike judges who work within the State’s judicial hierarchy, or prosecutors who belong to a prosecutorial corps superintended by the State’s Attorney General, sheriffs are not part of a state command and serve under no “State Sheriff General.” The Court, nonetheless, holds that the policies set by Sheriff Tate in Monroe County, though discrete from, and uncoordinated with, the policies of sheriffs in other counties, “may fairly be said to represent [Alabama] policy.” See ibid. I disagree.

I

In my view, Alabama law defining the office of sheriff indicates that the sheriff acts within and for the county when setting and implementing law enforcement policy. In explaining why it concludes otherwise and deems the sheriff the State’s, not the county’s, policymaker, the Court leans heavily on provisions of the State’s Constitution. The Court relies on the Alabama Constitution’s designation of “a sheriff for each county” as a member of the State’s “executive department.” See Ala. Const., Art. V, § 112; ante, at 787. In addition, the Court points to two 1901 amendments relating to the impeachment of sheriffs. See ante, at 788-789. These measures are the strongest supports for the Court’s classification of county sheriffs as state actors. They are not sturdy enough, however, to justify the Court’s holding that county sheriffs are state officials.

Alabama law does not consistently designate sheriffs as “executive department” officers; instead, Alabama law in several instances refers to sheriffs as county officials. See In re Opinions of Justices, 225 Ala. 359, 143 So. 345 (1932) (sheriffs are county officers for purposes of 1912 constitutional amendment regarding county officers’ salaries); Ala. Code § 36-3-4(a) (1991) (sheriff, a “county officer,” shall be elected to four-year term); Ala. Code §36-22-16(a) (1991) (sheriffs shall be compensated out of the county treasury in same manner as “other county employees”). Moreover, designations Alabama attaches to sheriffs in its laws and decisions are not dispositive of a court’s assessment of Sheriff Tate’s status for § 1983 purposes. Cf. Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Doe, 519 U. S. 425, 429, n. 5 (1997); Howlett v. Rose, 496 U. S. 356, 376 (1990) (defenses to § 1983 actions are questions of federal law); Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277, 284, and n. 8 (1980) (state law granting immunity to parole officers does not control question whether such officers have immunity under § 1983). If a State’s designation sufficed to answer the federal question at issue, “States would then be free to nullify for their own people the legislative decisions that Congress has made on behalf of all the People.” Howlett, 496 U. S., at 383.

Nor are the 1901 impeachment measures secure indicators that a sheriff acts on behalf of the State, not the county. As the Court explains, the impeachment amendments were intended to provide a state check on county sheriffs in view of their glaring lapses in acquiescing to abductions and lynchings in the late 1800’s. See ante, at 788. However, making an officer eligible for impeachment, by itself, does not change the governmental unit to which the officer belongs. See Ala. Const., Art. VII, § 175 (listing numerous county officials subject to impeachment); Ala. Code § 36 — 11— 1(a) (1991) (same). And transferring impeachment proceedings from county courts to the State Supreme Court, see Ala. Const., Art. VII, § 174, is sensibly seen as an acknowledgment of the power wielded by sheriffs within their own counties, and the consequent need for placement of removal authority outside a sheriff’s bailiwick. Furthermore, impeachment of sheriffs is not a power reserved exclusively to state officials; “five resident taxpayers” of the sheriff’s county can initiate an impeachment. See Ala. Code § 36— 11-6 (1991). Impeachment, in sum, provides an ultimate check on flagrant behavior, but does not serve as a tight control rein.

The prime controllers of a sheriff’s service are the county residents, the people who select their sheriff at quadrennial elections. Sheriff Tate owes his position as chief law enforcement officer of Monroe County to the county residents who elected him, and who can unseat him. See Ala. Const., Art. V, § 138, as amended by Arndt. No. 35 (“A sheriff shall be elected in each county by the qualified electors thereof ....”). On the ballot, candidates for the office of sheriff are grouped with candidates for other county offices, and are not listed with state office candidates. See Ala. Code § 17-8-5 (1995).

Traditionally, Alabama sheriffs have had autonomy to formulate and execute law enforcement policy within the geographic confines of their counties. Under Alabama law, “[i]t shall be the duty of sheriffs in their respective counties . . . to ferret out crime, to apprehend and arrest criminals and . . . to secure evidence of crimes.” Ala. Code §36-22-3(4) (1991) (emphasis added); see also Ala. Code § 15-6-1 (1995) (“The sheriff is the principal conservator of the peace in his county, and it is his duty to suppress riots, unlawful assemblies and affrays. In the execution of such duty, he may summon to his aid as many of the men of his county as he thinks proper.” (emphasis added)); §15-10-1 (sheriffs may make arrests “within their respective counties”).

Monroe County pays Sheriff Tate’s salary, see Ala. Code § 36-22-16(a) (1991) (sheriffs shall be paid “out of the county treasury as the salaries of other county employees are paid”), and the sheriff operates out of an office provided, furnished, and equipped by the county, see § 36-22-18. The obligation to fully equip the sheriff is substantial, requiring a county commission to “furnish the sheriff with the necessary quarters, books, stationery, office equipment, supplies, postage and other conveniences and equipment, including automobiles and necessary repairs, maintenance and all expenses incidental thereto.” Ibid. These obligations are of practical importance, for they mean that purse strings can be pulled at the county level; a county is obliged to provide a sheriff only what is “reasonably needed for the proper and efficient conduct of the affairs of the sheriff’s office,” ibid. (emphasis added). How generously the sheriff will be equipped is likely to influence that officer’s day-to-day conduct to a greater extent than the remote prospect of impeachment. See ibid.; see also Geneva Cty. Comm’n v. Tice, 578 So. 2d 1070, 1075 (Ala. 1991) (county may reasonably limit budget for overtime pay for sheriff’s deputies); Ala. Code § 36-22-16(a) (1991) (sheriff’s salary, paid by county, may be increased “by law by general or local act”); §36-22-3(3) (sheriff must render to county treasurer a periodic written Statement of moneys collected by sheriff on behalf of county).

Sheriff Tate, in short, is in vital respects a county official. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to think of a single official who more completely represents the exercise of significant power within a county. See Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 746 F. 2d 337, 340-341 (CA6 1984) (sheriff elected by residents of county to be county’s chief law enforcement officer, paid and equipped by county, is “obvious[ly]” a county official), rev’d on other grounds, 475 U. S. 469 (1986).

The Court observes that it is “most important] ” to its holding that Alabama sheriffs “are given complete authority to enforce the state criminal law in their counties.” See ante, at 790. If the Court means to suggest that Sheriff Tate should be classified as a state actor because he is enforcing state (as opposed to county or municipal) law, the Court proves far too much. Because most criminal laws are of statewide application, relying on whose law the sheriff enforces yields an all-state categorization of sheriffs, despite the Court’s recognition that such blanket classification is inappropriate. See ante, at 786. Sheriffs in Arkansas, Texas, and Washington, just like sheriffs in Alabama, enforce the State’s law, but that does not make them policymakers for the State rather than the county. See ante, at 795-796, n. 10.

In emphasizing that the Monroe County Commission cannot instruct Sheriff Tate how to accomplish his law enforcement mission, see ante, at 790, the Court indirectly endorses the Eleventh Circuit’s reasoning: Because under Alabama law a county commission does not possess law enforcement authority, a sheriff’s law enforcement activities cannot represent county policy. See McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F. 3d 1573, 1578 (CA11 1996). There is an irony in this approach: If a county commission lacks law enforcement authority, then the sheriff becomes a state official; but if a county commission possesses such authority and directs the sheriff’s activities, then the sheriff presumably would not be a final policymaker in the realm of law enforcement, see St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U. S. 112, 127 (1988) (plurality opinion).

Moreover, in determining who makes county policy, this Court has never reasoned that all policymaking authority must be vested in a single body that either exercises that power or formally delegates it to another. Few local governments would fit that rigid model. Cf. id., at 124-125 (“The States have extremely wide latitude in determining the form that local government takes .... [0]ne may expect to find a rich variety of ways in which the power of government is distributed among a host of different officials and official bodies.”). Nor does Monell support such a constricted view of the exercise of municipal authority; there, we spoke of §1983 liability for acts by “lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy.” 436 U. S., at 694 (emphasis added). In this case, Sheriff Tate is “the county’s final policymaker in the area of law enforcement, not by virtue of delegation by the county’s governing body but, rather, by virtue of the office to which the sheriff has been elected.” Turner v. Upton Cty., 915 F. 2d 133, 136 (CA5 1990); see also Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F. 2d 556, 571 (CA1 1985); accord, Vera v. Tue, 73 F. 3d 604, 609 (CA5 1996) (“[T]he Sheriff, an elected county official [in Texas], had equal authority to the county commissioners in that jurisdiction [so] that his actions constituted those of the county just as much as those of the commissioners.”)- An Alabama sheriff is a county policymaker because he independently exercises law enforcement authority for the county. In this most crucial respect, the Alabama arrangement resembles the “unique structure of county government” in Texas. See Turner, 915 F. 2d, at 136-137, cited ante, at 796, n. 10.

The Court also suggests that because the Governor can direct a sheriff to investigate a violation of law in the county, an Alabama sheriff must be a state, not a county, official. See ante, at 791 (citing Ala. Code §36-22-5 (1991)). It is worth noting that a group of county citizens can likewise trigger an investigation by the sheriff. See §36-22-6(b). The respondent, Monroe County, did not inform us whether the Governor directs county sheriffs to conduct investigations with any regularity. More important, there is no suggestion that Sheriff Tate was proceeding under the Governor’s direction when Tate pursued the investigation that led to McMillian’s Death Row confinement. If Sheriff Tate were acting on instruction from the Governor, this would be a very different case. But the bare possibility that a Governor might sometime direct a sheriff’s law enforcement activities does not lessen the sheriff’s authority, as the final County policymaker, in the general run of investigations the sheriff undertakes.

II

The Court’s reliance on “the ancient understanding of what it has meant to be a sheriff,” ante, at 795, is no more persuasive than its interpretation of Alabama law. This emphasis on the historical understanding of the office of sheriff implies, again, an all-state categorization of sheriffs throughout the Nation; but because the Court expressly disclaims such a “blunderbuss” approach, ibid., that cannot be what this history lesson is intended to convey. In England, it is true, the sheriff did perform “the. king’s business in the county.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *339. But the English sheriff, as Blackstone described him, was far closer to the crown than his contemporary counterpart is to the central state government. While sheriffs were for a time chosen locally, “[t]his election,” according to Blackstone, “was in all probability not absolutely vested in the [inhabitants of the counties], but required the royal approbation.” Id., at *340. Eventually, the king chose the sheriff from a list proposed by the judges and other great officers. See id., at *340-*341.

Whatever English history may teach, “[tjhroughout U. S. history, the sheriff has remained the principal law enforcement officer in the county.” G. Felkenes, The Criminal Justice System: Its Functions and Personnel 53 (1973); see id., at 52-53 (referring specifically to Alabama sheriffs). In the United States, “[i]n order to reserve control over the sheriff’s department and its police functions, the people made the sheriff an elective officer.” Id., at 53. It is this status as the county’s law enforcement officer chosen by the county’s residents that is at the root of the contemporary understanding of the sheriff as a county officer.

* * *

A sheriff locally elected, paid, and equipped, who autonomously sets and implements law enforcement policies operative within the geographic confines of a county, is ordinarily just what he seems to be: a county official. Nothing in Alabama law warrants a different conclusion. It makes scant sense to treat sheriffs’ activities differently based on the presence or absence of state constitutional provisions of the limited kind Alabama has adopted.

The Court’s Alabama-specific approach, however, assures that today’s immediate holding is of limited reach. The Court does not appear to question that an Alabama sheriff may still be a county policymaker for some purposes, such as hiring the county’s chief jailor, see Parker v. Williams, 862 F. 2d 1471, 1477-1481 (CA11 1989). And, as the Court acknowledges, under its approach sheriffs may be policymakers for certain purposes in some States and not in others. See ante, at 795, and n. 10. The Court’s opinion does not call into question the numerous Court of Appeals decisions, some of them decades old, ranking sheriffs as county, not state, policymakers. Furthermore, the Court’s recognition of the historic reasons why Alabama listed sheriffs as members of the State’s “executive department,” see ante, at 788-789, should discourage endeavors to insulate counties and municipalities from Monell liability by change-the-label devices. Thus, the Court’s opinion, while in my view misguided, does little to alter § 1983 county and municipal liability in most jurisdictions.

       The claims against the defendants in their individual capacities have proceeded independently in the lower courts, with some of petitioner’s claims surviving motions for summary judgment. See McMillian v. Johnson, 878 F. Supp. 1473, 1544-1545 (MD Ala. 1995).

       We have explained that a suit against a governmental officer “in his official capacity” is the same as a suit “ ‘against [the] entity of which [the] officer is an agent/” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 165 (1985) (quoting Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978)), and that victory in such an “official-capacity” suit “imposes liability on the entity that [the officer] represents,” Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464, 471 (1985).

       We note that two of the three judges on the Eleventh Circuit’s panel are based in Alabama. In addition, this is the second Eleventh Circuit panel to have reached this conclusion. See Swint v. Wadley, 5 F. 3d 1435, 1450-1451 (1993), vacated for lack of appellate jurisdiction, 514 U. S. 35 (1995).

       Executive department officers have to take the constitutional oath of office, Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. XVII, §279; Ala. Const, of 1875, Art. XV, §1, and are required to submit written reports to the Governor on demand. Submitting a false report was originally a crime, Ala. Const, of 1875, Art. V, § 9, and is now an impeachable offense, Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. V, §121.

       As a result of this holding and the State Constitution’s sovereign immunity provision, see Ala. Const, of 1901, Art. I, §14 (“[T]he State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity”), the Alabama Supreme Court has held that a sheriff is absolutely immune from all suits for damages based on his official acts. Parker v. Amerson, 519 So. 2d 442, 446 (Ala. 1987). See also King v. Colbert County, 620 So. 2d 623, 626 (Ala. 1993); Boshell v. Walker County Sheriff, 598 So. 2d 843, 844 (Ala. 1992); Hereford v. Jefferson County, 586 So. 2d 209, 210 (Ala. 1991).

       Seventeen of the forty judicial circuits in Alabama contain more than one county, including the circuit in which Monroe County sits. Ala. Code §12-11-2 (1995).

       Petitioner also makes three other points that we believe have little merit. First, he points out that when the sheriff’s office is vacant or when the sheriff is incapacitated, it is the county coroner that fills in for the sheriff. Ala. Code § 11-5-5 (1989). We note that this temporary assignment only lasts until the Governor appoints a replacement for the sheriff, who then serves out the remainder of the sheriffs term. Ala. Code § 36-9-17 (1991). Thus, even assuming that the county coroner is a county official, we place little weight on this assignment of temporary responsibility, which by its nature must fall to an official who is already in the county and available to step in for the sheriff at any time. Second, petitioner cites several instances in the code where a group of officials that includes the sheriff is designated a group of “county officials” or “county employees.” See, e.g., §§36-3-4, 36-15-1, 36-22-16. But in light of the Alabama Supreme Court’s conclusion that (i) sheriffs are state officials according to the State Constitution, see Parker, 519 So. 2d, at 443, and (ii) contrary statements in that court’s prior decisions had ignored the Constitution and therefore should not be followed, id., at 445 (citing, among other cases, In re Opinions of Justices, 225 Ala. 359, 143 So. 345 (1932)), we think that any contrary implication in the code is entitled to little weight. Finally, petitioner relies on the Monroe County Commission’s insurance policy — which, according to the District Court, “may cover .. . some, but not all, of the claims made against” Monroe County and Sheriff Tate in this suit, App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a — to establish that the commission will pay any judgment rendered against Sheriff Tate. But this policy shows, at the most, that there was uncertainty as to whether the courts would consider Sheriff Tate a county policymaker in these circumstances, not that the county would pay any judgment against him.

       See W. Murfree, A Treatise on the Law of Sheriffs and Other Ministerial Officers 6 (1890) (sheriffs elected by county voters in all States but two).

       Cf. McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F. 3d 1573, 1579 (CA11 1996) (“[W]e see. no anomaly in having different state policymakers in different counties. Such a situation would be no different than if each of a city’s police precinct commanders had unreviewable authority over how arrestees were processed. Each commander might have a different processing policy, but that does not render a commander’s policy that of her precinct as opposed to that of the city when the city is sued under § 1983”).

       Compare, e. g., Strickler v. Waters, 989 F. 2d 1375, 1390 (CA4 1993) (Virginia “city sheriff” does not set city policy in area of jail conditions); Thompson v. Duke, 882 F. 2d 1180, 1187 (CA7 1989) (Illinois sheriff does not set county policy in area of training jail employees, because county board of commissioners has no authority to set policy in this area), with Dotson v. Chester, 937 F. 2d 920, 926-928 (CA4 1991) (Maryland sheriff sets county policy in area of jail conditions, based on exhaustive survey of Maryland law; citing no constitutional provision to the contrary); Davis v. Mason County, 927 F. 2d 1473, 1480 (CA9 1991) (Washington sheriff sets county policy in area of training deputy sheriffs, based on statutory provision labeling sheriff “chief executive officer ... of the county”; citing no constitutional provision to the contrary (internal quotation marks omitted)); Turner v. Upton County, 915 F. 2d 133, 136-137 (CA5 1990) (Texas sheriff sets county policy in area of law enforcement, based on “unique structure of county government in Texas”; citing no constitutional provision to the contrary (internal quotation marks omitted)); Crowder v. Sinyard, 884 F. 2d 804, 828 (CA5 1989) (Arkansas sheriff sets county policy in area of law enforcement; citing no constitutional provision to the contrary).

       The Court observes that this Court must “defer considerably” to the Eleventh Circuit’s construction of Alabama law. See ante, at 786. But cf. Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U. S. 225, 231 (1991) (courts of appeals review de novo district courts’ state-law determinations). Deference, however, does not supplant careful review, see St. Louis v. Praprot

        nik, 485 U. S. 112, 129-130, 131-132 (1988) (plurality opinion) (reversing Court of Appeals determination that certain city officials were municipal policymakers), and, in any event, has little place here because the Court’s reasoning differs substantially from that of the Eleventh Circuit.

       The majority of Courts of Appeals to have addressed this question have similarly concluded that sheriffs, when engaged in a variety of activities, are county actors. See, e. g., cases cited ante, at 795-796, n. 10; see also Parker v. Williams, 862 F. 2d 1471, 1477-1481 (CA11 1989) (Alabama sheriff acts for county in hiring chief jailor); Lucas v. O’Loughlin, 831 F. 2d 232, 234-235 (CA11 1987) (Florida sheriff acts for county in hiring and firing deputies); Weber v. Dell, 804 F. 2d 796, 802-803 (CA2 1986) (New York sheriff acts for county in setting county jail strip search policy); Marchese v. Lucas, 758 F. 2d 181, 188-189 (CA6 1985) (Michigan sheriff acts for county in training deputies and ratifying deputies’ use of force); Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F. 2d 556, 571 (CA1 1985) (Massachusetts sheriff acts for county in setting county jail strip search policy). But see Soderbeck v. Burnett, 821 F. 2d 446, 451-452 (CA7 1987) (Wisconsin sheriff acts on behalf of State, not county, in hiring and firing employees).


author: Justice Stevens Justice Scalia,

text:
    De BUONO, NEW YORK COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, et al. v. NYSA-ILA MEDICAL AND CLINICAL SERVICES FUND, by its trustees, BOWERS, et al.
    No. 95-1594.
    Argued February 24, 1997
    Decided June 2, 1997

      M. Patricia Smith, Assistant Attorney General of New York, argued the cause for petitioners. With her on the briefs were Dennis C. Vacco, Attorney General, Barbara G. Billet, Solicitor General, Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Solicitor General, and Daniel F. De Vita, Assistant Attorney General.

      Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Dellinger,

      James A. Feldman, J. Davitt McAteer, Allen H. Feldman, Nathaniel I. Spiller, and Judith D. Heimlich.

      Donato Caruso argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were C. Peter Lambos, Thomas W. Gleason, and Ernest L. Mathews, Jr.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Richard Blumen-thal, Attorney General of Connecticut, and Phyllis E. Hyman, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Grant Woods of Arizona, Winston Bryant of Arkansas, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Pamela Carter of Indiana, Andrew Ketterer of Maine, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Hubert H. Humphrey III of Minnesota, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Jeffrey R. Howard of New Hampshire, Peter Verniero of New Jersey, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Jeffrey B. Pine of Rhode Island, Dan Morales of Texas, Jeffrey L. Ame-stoy of Vermont, James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, Christine 0. Gregoire of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, and James E. Doyle of Wisconsin; for the American Federation of State County and .Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, by Larry Weinberg, John C. Dempsey, Andrew D. Roth, and Nancy E. Hoffman; for the Healthcare Association of New York State et al. by Jeffrey J. Sherrin and Mark Thomas; for the National Employment Lawyers Association by Mary Ellen Signorille and Jeffrey Lewis; and for the National Governors’ Association et al. by Richard Ruda.

        Ronald S. Longhofer and John H. Eggertsen filed a brief for the Self-Insurance Institute of America, Inc., as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

   Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is another Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) pre-emption case. Broadly stated, the question presented is whether hospitals operated by ERISA plans are subject to the same laws as other hospitals. More precisely, the question is whether the opaque language in ERISA’s § 514(a) precludes New York from imposing a gross receipts tax on the income of medical centers operated by ERISA funds. We hold that New York may collect its tax.

I

In 1990, faced with the choice of either curtailing its Medicaid program or generating additional revenue to reduce the program deficit, the New York General Assembly enacted the Health Facility Assessment (HFA). The HFA imposes a tax on gross receipts for patient services at hospitals, residential health care facilities, and diagnostic and treatment centers. The assessments become a part of the State’s general revenues.

Respondents are the trustees of the NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund (Fund), which administers a self-insured, multiemployer welfare benefit plan. The Fund owns and operates three medical centers — two in New York and one in New Jersey — that provide medical, dental, and other health care benefits primarily to longshore workers, retirees, and their dependents. The New York centers are licensed by the State as “diagnostic and treatment centers,” App. 80, and are thus subject to a 0.6 percent tax on gross receipts under the HFA. N. Y. Pub. Health Law §2807-d(2)(c) (McKinney 1993).

During the period from January through November of 1991, respondents paid HFA assessments totaling $7,066 based on the two New York hospitals’ patient care income of $1,177,670. At that time, they discontinued the payments and brought this action against appropriate state officials (petitioners) to enjoin future assessments and to obtain a refund of the tax paid in 1991. The complaint alleged that the HFA is a state law that “relates to” the Fund within the meaning of § 514(a) of ERISA, and is therefore pre-empted as applied to hospitals run by ERISA plans.

The District Court denied relief. It concluded that HFA was not pre-empted because it was a “tax of general application” that did not “interfere with the calculation of benefits or the determination of an employee’s eligibility for benefits” and thus had only an incidental impact on benefit plans. App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. It distinguished eases in which we had found that certain “laws of general application” were not pre-empted by ERISA, explaining that the HFA “targets only the health care industry,” which is, “by definition, the realm where ERISA 'welfare plans must operate,” NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund v. Axelrod, M. D., 27 F. 3d 823, 827 (1994). The court reasoned that because the HFA “operates as an immediate tax on payments and contributions which were intended to pay for participants’ medical benefits,” it directly affects “the very operations and functions that make the Fund what it is, a provider of medical, surgical, and hospital care to its participants and their beneficiaries.” Ibid. The HFA, concluded the court, thus “related to” the Fund because it reduced the amount of Fund assets that would otherwise be available to provide plan members with benefits, and could cause the plan to limit its benefits, or to charge plan members higher fees.

The first petition for certiorari in this case was filed before we handed down our opinion in New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995). In that case we held that ERISA did not pre-empt a New York statute that required hospitals to collect surcharges from patients covered by a commercial insurer but not from patients insured by a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan. Id., at 649-651. After deciding Travelers, we vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals in this case and remanded for further consideration in light of that opinion. 514 U. S. 1094 (1995).

On remand the Court of Appeals reinstated its original judgment. The court distinguished the statute involved in Travelers on the ground that — by imposing a tax on the health insurance carriers who provided coverage to plans and their beneficiaries — it had only an indirect economic influence on the decisions of ERISA plan administrators, whereas the HFA “depletes the Fund’s assets directly, and thus has an immediate impact on the operations of an ERISA plan,” NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund v. Axelrod, M. D., 74 F. 3d 28, 30 (1996). We granted the New York officials’ second petition for certiorari, 519 U. S. 926 (1996), and now reverse.

II

When the Second Circuit initially found the HFA preempted as applied to Fund-operated hospitals, that court relied substantially on an expansive and literal interpretation of the words “relate to” in § 514(a) of ERISA. 27 F. 3d, at 826. In reconsidering the case on remand, the court appears to have adhered to that approach, failing to give proper weight to Travelers' rejection of a strictly literal reading of § 514(a).

In Travelers, as in our earlier cases, we noted that the literal text of § 514(a) is “clearly expansive.” 514 U. S., at 655. But we were quite clear in that case that the text could not be read to “extend to the furthest stretch of its indeterminacy, [or] for all practical purposes pre-emption would never run its course, for ‘[rjeally, universally, relations stop nowhere,’ H. James, Roderick Hudson xli (New York ed., World’s Classics 1980).” Ibid.

In óur earlier ERISA pre-emption cases, it had not been necessary to rely on the expansive character of ERISA’s literal language in order to find pre-emption because the state laws at issue in those cases had a clear “connection with or reference to,” Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 96-97 (1983), ERISA benefit plans. But in Travelers we confronted directly the question whether ERISA’s “relates to” language was intended to modify “the starting presumption that Congress does not intend to supplant state law.” 514 U. S., at 654. We unequivocally concluded that it did not, and we acknowledged “that our prior attempts] to construe the phrase ‘relate to’ d[o] not give us much help drawing the line here.” Id., at 655. In order to evaluate whether the normal presumption against pre-emption has been overcome in a particular case, we concluded that we “must go beyond the unhelpful text and the frustrating difficulty of defining its key term, and look instead to the objec-ti ves of the ERISA statute as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive.” Id., at 656. We endorsed that approach once again earlier this Term in concluding that California’s prevailing wage law was not pre-empted by ERISA. California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc., 519 U. S. 316, 325 (1997).

Following that approach here, we begin by noting that the historic police powers of the State include the regulation of matters of health and safety. Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 715 (1985). While the HFA is a revenue raising measure, rather than a regulation of hospitals, it clearly operates in a field that “ ‘has been traditionally occupied by the States.’” Ibid. (quoting Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977)). Respondents therefore bear the considerable burden of overcoming “the starting presumption that Congress does not intend to supplant state law.” Travelers, 514 U. S., at 654.

There is nothing in the operation of the HFA that convinces us it is the type of state law that Congress intended ERISA to supersede. This is not a case in which New York has forbidden a method of calculating pension benefits that federal law permits, or required employers to provide certain benefits. Nor is it a case in which the existence of a pension plan is a critical element of a state-law cause of action, or one in which the state statute contains provisions that expressly refer to ERISA or ERISA plans.

A consideration of the actual operation of the state statute leads us to the conclusion that the HFA is one of “myriad state laws” of general applicability that impose some burdens on the administration of ERISA plans but nevertheless do not “relate to” them within the meaning of the governing statute. See Travelers, 514 U. S., at 668; Dillingham Constr., 519 U. S., at 333-334. The HFA is a tax on hospitals. Most hospitals are not owned or operated by ERISA' funds. This particular ERISA fund has arranged to provide medical benefits for its plan beneficiaries by running hospitals directly, rather than by purchasing the same services at independently run hospitals. If the Fund had made the other choice, and had purchased health care services from a hospital, that facility would have passed the expense of the HFA onto the Fund and its plan beneficiaries through the rates it set for the services provided. The Fund would then have had to decide whether to cover a more limited range of services for its beneficiaries, or perhaps to charge plan members higher rates. Although the tax in such a circumstance would be “indirect,” its impact on the Fund’s decisions would be in all relevant respects identical to the “direct” impact felt here. Thus, the supposed difference between direct and indirect impact — upon which the Court of Appeals relied in distinguishing this case from Travelers — cannot withstand scrutiny. Any state tax, or other law, that increases the cost of providing benefits to covered employees will have some effect on the administration of ERISA plans, but that simply cannot mean that every state law with such an effect is preempted by the federal statute.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Thomas joins,

dissenting.

“[I]t is the duty of this court to see to it that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, which is defined and limited by statute, is not exceeded.” Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149, 152 (1908). Despite our obligation to examine federal-court jurisdiction even if the issue is not raised by either party, ibid., and despite the Court’s explicit acknowledgment, ante, at 810-811, n. 5, of the possibility that jurisdiction over this case is barred by the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, the Court proceeds to decide the merits of respondents’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) pre-emption challenge. The Court offers two grounds for passing over the threshold question of jurisdiction: our “settled practice of according respect to the courts of appeals’ greater familiarity with issues of state law,” and petitioners’ “active participation in nearly four years of federal litigation with no complaint about federal jurisdiction.” Ante, at 811, n. 5. In my view, neither of these factors justifies our proceeding without resolving the issue of jurisdiction.

The Tax Injunction Act bars federal-court jurisdiction over an action seeking to enjoin a state tax (such as the one at issue here) where “a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” 28 U. S. C. § 1341; see Arkansas v. Farm Credit Servs. of Central Ark., post, at 825 (describing the Act as a “jurisdictional rule” and “broad jurisdictional barrier”). The District Court in this case suggested that the Tax Injunction Act might not bar jurisdiction here, since New York courts might not afford respondents a “plain” remedy within the meaning of the Act. See NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund v. Axelrod, No. 92 Civ. 2779 (SDNY, Feb. 18, 1993), App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. That suggestion was not, however, based upon the District Court’s resolution of any “issues of state law,” as today’s opinion intimates, ante, at 811, n. 5; rather, it rested upon the District Court’s conclusion that uncertainty over the implications of a federal statute — § 502(e)(1) of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1) — might render the availability of a state-court remedy not “plain.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. The Court of Appeals, in turn, made no mention of the jurisdictional issue, presumably because, under controlling Circuit precedent, jurisdiction was secure: The Second Circuit had previously held that state courts could not provide any remedy for ERISA-based challenges to state taxes within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act, since “Congress has divested the state courts of jurisdiction” over ERISA claims. Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo, 14 F. 3d 708, 714 (1993) (citing ERISA § 502(e)(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1)), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995). That holding (like the District Court’s discussion of the issue in this case) in no way turns on New York state law, so I am at a loss to understand the Court’s invoeation of “our settled practice of according respect to the courts of appeals’ greater familiarity with issues of state law,” ante, at 811, n. 5, as a basis for overlooking the question whether the Tax Injunction Act bars federal-court jurisdiction.

The second factor relied upon by the Court in support of its treatment of the jurisdictional issue is that petitioners dropped the issue after the District Court failed to adopt their interpretation of the Tax Injunction Act. But the fact that petitioners have “active[ly] participated] in nearly four years of federal litigation with no complaint about federal jurisdiction,” ibid., cannot possibly confer upon us jurisdiction that we do not otherwise possess. It is our duty to resolve the jurisdictional question, whether or not it has been preserved by the parties. Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539, 548, n. 2 (1981); Louisville & Nashville R. Co., supra, at 152. In Sumner we confronted the identical circumstance presented here — a jurisdictional argument raised before the District Court but abandoned before the Court of Appeals— and felt the need to address the jurisdictional issue. 449 U. S., at 547, n. 2.

I have previously noted the split among the Circuits on the question whether the Tax Injunction Act deprives federal courts of jurisdiction over ERISA-based challenges to state taxes. See Barnes v. E-Systems, Inc. Group Hospital Medical & Surgical Ins. Plan, 501 U. S. 1301, 1302-1303 (1991) (Scalia, J., in chambers). In a prior case, we expressly left the question open, saying that “[w]e express no opinion [on] whether a party [can] sue under ERISA to enjoin or to declare invalid a state tax levy, despite the Tax Injunction Act”; we noted that the answer would depend on whether “state law provide [s] no ‘speedy and efficient remedy’ ” and on whether “Congress intended § 502 of ERISA to be an exception to the Tax Injunction Act.” Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 20, n. 21 (1983). Because I am uncertain of the federal courts’ jurisdiction over this case, I would set the jurisdictional issue for briefing and argument, and would resolve that issue before reaching the merits of respondents’ ERISA pre-emption claim. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from today’s opinion.

       The boundaries of ERISA’s pre-emptive reach have been the focus of considerable attention from this Court. This case is one of three addressing the issue this Term. See Boggs v. Boggs, post, p. 833; California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc., 519 U. S. 316 (1997). And in the 16 years since we first took up the question, we have decided no fewer than 13 cases. See New York State Conference

        of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995); John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust and Sav. Bank, 510 U. S. 86 (1993); District of Columbia v. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S. 125 (1992); Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133 (1990); FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52 (1990); Massachusetts v. Morash, 490 U. S. 107 (1989); Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825 (1988); Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne, 482 U. S. 1 (1987); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58 (1987); Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41 (1987); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 (1985); Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85 (1983); and Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504 (1981). The issue has also generated an avalanche of litigation in the lower courts. See Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S., at 135, and n. 3 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (observing that in 1992, a LEXIS search uncovered more than 2,800 opinions on ERISA pre-emption).

       Section 514(a) of ERISA informs us that “[ejxcept as provided in subsection (b) of this section, the provisions of this [statute] shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan” covered by the statute. 88 Stat. 897, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a). None of the exceptions in subsection (b) is directly at issue in this case.

       N. Y. Pub. Health Law § 2807-d (McKinney Supp. 1992).

       In addition to taxing the income derived from patient services at these facilities, the HFA taxes investment income and certain operating income. N. Y. Pub. Health Law §§ 2807 — d(3)(c), 2807 — d(S)(d) (McKinney 1993). The taxation of these activities is not challenged here.

       In response to the complaint filed in 1992, petitioners objected to federal jurisdiction, relying on the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. §1341, which provides that federal courts “shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” Respondents contended that the statute did not apply because the New York courts do not provide the “plain” remedy required to bar federal jurisdiction. The District Court appears to have agreed with respondents, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a, but when it ultimately granted summary judgment and dismissed the complaint, it did not squarely decide the question, id,., at 19a, 22a-23a. The Court of Appeals did not address the Tax Injunction Act in either of its two opinions in this case and there is no suggestion anywhere in the papers that the State raised the issue before that court. The Second Circuit had previously held, however, that the Tax Injunction Act is not a bar to actions such as this. See Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo, 14 F. 3d 708, 713-714 (1993), rev’d on other grounds, New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995). In Travelers, we noted, but did not reexamine, that conclusion. See id., at 652-653, n. 4. In the case at bar, the Court of Appeals presumably was satisfied that its jurisdiction was secure for the reasons given in Travelers. Before this Court, no party in either Travelers or the current ease has mentioned the Tax Injunction Act or questioned the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that a “plain” remedy is unavailable in the New York courts. Given our settled practice of according respect to the courts of appeals’ greater familiarity with issues of state law, cf. Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 346-347, and n. 10 (1976), and the State’s active participation in nearly four years of federal litigation with no complaint about federal jurisdiction, it is appropriate for us to presume that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that, under these circumstances, New York courts did not provide a “plain” remedy barring federal consideration of the state tax.

       See, e. g., Mackey, 486 U. S., at 838 (generally applicable garnishment law not pre-empted); Fort Halifax Packing Co., 482 U. S., at 19 (state law requiring one-time severance payment not pre-empted).

       See also Dillingham Constr., 519 U. S., at 335 (Scalia, J., concurring) (“[Ajpplying the ‘relate to’ provision according to its terms was a project doomed to failure, since, as many a curbstone philosopher has observed, everything is related to everything else”).

       Where “federal law is said to bar state action in fields of traditional state regulation ... we have worked on the ‘assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.’ ” Travelers, 514 U. S., at 655 (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). See also Dillingham Constr., 519 U. S., at 325.

       “The prevailing wage statute alters the incentives, but does not dictate the choices, facing ERISA plans. In this regard, it is ‘no different from myriad state laws in areas traditionally subject to local regulation, which Congress could not possibly have intended to eliminate.’ Travelers, 514 U. S., at 668. We could not hold pre-empted a state law in an area of traditional state regulation based on so tenuous a relation without doing grave violence to our presumption that Congress intended nothing of the sort. We thus conclude that California’s prevailing wage laws and apprenticeship standards do not have a ‘connection with,’ and therefore do not ‘relate to,’ ERISA plans.” Dillingham Constr., 519 U. S., at 334.

       Indeed, the Court of Appeals rested its conclusion in no small part on the fact that the HFA “targets only the health care industry.” NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund v. Axelrod, M. D., 27 F. 3d 823, 827 (CA2 1994). Rather than warranting pre-emption, this point supports the application of the “starting presumption” against pre-emption.

       The respondents place great weight on the fact that in 1983 Congress added a specific provision to ERISA to save Hawaii’s Prepaid Health Care Act from pre-emption, and that in so doing, the Legislature noted that ERISA generally does pre-empt “any State tax law relating to employee benefit plans.” 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(5)(B)(i). See Brief for Respondents 17-28. But there is no significant difference between the language in this provision and the pre-emption provision in § 514(a), and we are unconvinced that a stricter standard of pre-emption should apply to state tax provisions than to other state laws.

       See, e. g., Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S., at 524-525 (“Whatever the purpose or purposes of the New Jersey statute, we conclude that it ‘relate[s] to pension plans’ governed by ERISA because it eliminates one method for calculating pension benefits — integration—that is permitted by federal law”).

       See, e.g., Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85 (1983) (ERISA pre-empted state law requiring the provision of pregnancy benefits); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 (1985) (law that required benefit plans to include minimum mental health benefits “related to” ERISA plans).

       See, e. g., Ingersoll-Rand Co., 498 U. S., at 139-140 (“We are not dealing here with a generally applicable statute that makes no reference to, or indeed functions irrespective of, the existence of an ERISA plan. . . . Here, the existence of a pension plan is a critical factor in establishing liability under the State’s wrongful discharge law. As a result, this cause of action relates not merely to pension benefits, but to the essence of the pension plan itself”).

       See Mackey, 486 U. S., at 828-830 (a provision that explicitly refers to ERISA in defining the scope of the state law’s application is pre-empted); Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S., at 130-131 (“Section 2(e)(2) of the District’s Equity Amendment Act specifically refers to welfare benefit plans regulated by ERISA and on that basis alone is pre-empted”).

       As we acknowledged in Travelers, there might be a state law whose economic effects, intentionally or otherwise, were so acute “as to force an ERISA plan to adopt a certain scheme of substantive coverage or effectively restrict its choice of insurers” and such a state law “might indeed be pre-empted under § 614,” 514 U. S., at 668. That is not the ease here.

      That the District Court rested its conclusion on 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1) is demonstrated by the sole authorities it cited in support of that conclusion: Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo. 813 F. Supp. 996 (SDNY 1993), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 14 F. 3d 708 (CA2 1993), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995); and National Carriers’ Conference Committee v. Heffernan, 440 F. Supp. 1280, 1283 (Conn. 1977). The only argument in Travelers that supports the conclusion reached here is the argument that “[b]ecause ERISA generally confers exclusive jurisdiction on the federal courts [under 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1)], a New York state court might well feel compelled to dismiss a state court action on the grounds that its jurisdiction has been preempted .... Thus, at a minimum the availability of a state court remedy is not ‘plain.’ ” 813 F. Supp., at 1001 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Likewise, Heffernan (which arose in Connecticut, not New York) offers pertinent reasoning based only on federal law: “Jurisdiction over suits arising under ERISA is, with minor exceptions, vested exclusively in the federal courts. 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1). If this suit were brought before a ... state court, that court might well feel compelled to dismiss the action on the grounds that its jurisdiction had been preempted by federal legislation and the supremacy clause. Consequently the plaintiff cannot be said to have a ‘plain, speedy and efficient’ remedy in state court. . . .” 440 F. Supp., at 1283 (footnote omitted).


author: Justice Kennedy

text:
    ARKANSAS v. FARM CREDIT SERVICES OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS et al.
    No. 95-1918.
    Argued April 21, 1997
    Decided June 2, 1997

      Martha G. Hunt argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.

      Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General Argrett, David C. Frederick, and David English Carmack.

      Richard A Hanson argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Rufus E. Wolff Kevin J. Feeley, and Michael L. Fayhee.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, Jeffrey S. Sutton, State Solicitor, Robert C. Maier, Assistant Attorney General, and Steven M. Houron, Acting Attorney General of New Hampshire, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Rickard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Robert Buttenuorth of Florida, Michael J Bowers of Georgia, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Jeffrey A. Modisett of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Scott Harslibarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Jeremiah W. Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark W. Barnett of South Dakota, John Knox Walkup of Tennessee, Jan Graham of Utah, Jeffrey L. Ame-stoy of Vermont, James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, Christine 0. Gregoire of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, and James E. Doyle of Wisconsin; for the American Bankers Association et al. by John J. Gill III and Michael F. Crotty; for the Multistate Tax Commission by Pauli Mines; and for the National Association of Securities and Commercial Law Attorneys by Kevin P. Roddy, G. Robert Blakey, Patrick E. Caf-ferty, Bryan L. Clobes, and Jonathan W. Cuneo.

        Michael A. Cardozo and William L. Daly filed a brief for the National Hockey League as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

   Justice Kennedy

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, restricts the power of federal district courts to prevent collection or enforcement of state taxes. It states: “The district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” The statute, on its face, yields no exception to the jurisdictional bar save where the state remedy is wanting, but at least one other exception is established by our cases: The statute does not constrain the power of federal courts if the Umted States sues to protect itself or its instrumentalities from state taxation. Department of Employment v. United States, 385 U. S. 355, 358 (1966). The present case explores the limits of this judicial exception. We decide here whether instrumentalities called Production Credit Associations, corporations chartered under federal law, are included within the exception when they sue by themselves. We hold they are not and so may not sue in federal court for an injunction against state taxation without the United States as co-plaintiff. The action must be dismissed, and, as a result, we do not reach the merits of the taxation dispute.

I

Production Credit Associations (PCAs) are corporations chartered by the Farm Credit Administration under the Farm Credit Act of 1971, 85 Stat. 583, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 2001 et seq. A PCA is a corporate financial institution organized by 10 or more farmers and designed in large part to make loans to farmers. §§2071, 2075. PCA’s have had differing tax-exempt status at different times, depending on whether the United States owned shares of their stock. See, e. g., Farm Credit Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 267. In the period relevant here (when all PCA stock has been in private hands) they have been exempted, by explicit federal statute, from state taxes on their “notes, debentures, and other obligations.” 12 U.S.C. §2077.

Four PCA’s, respondents here, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas claiming a tax exemption going beyond the express statutory language of § 2077. They assert immunity not only from the taxes described in the exemption statute we have quoted but also from Arkansas sales and income taxes. They seek a declaratory judgment and an injunction prohibiting the State from levying the taxes against them. The District Court granted the PCAs’ motion for summary judgment, and a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for' the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 76 F. 3d 961 (1996).

Entitlement to the immunity is the underlying substantive issue, were we to reach it. The Tax Injunction Act, however, is an initial obstacle, for by its terms it would bar the relief the PCA’s seek absent some exception. Seeking to overcome the bar under the Tax Injunction Act, the PCA’s, first in the trial court and now here, contended that they are instrumentalities of the United States and so not subject to the provisions of the Act any more than the United States itself. The first point is correct: PCA’s are instrumentalities of the United States because the statute which charters them says so. 12 U. S. C. §§ 2071(b)(7), 2077. The PCAs’ argument about what follows from the designation, however, is incorrect. Instrumentalities of the United States, by virtue of that designation alone, do not have the same right as does the United States to avoid the prohibitions of the Tax Injunction Act.

An observation is proper respecting our consideration of this threshold question. Although the trial court addressed the meaning and operation of the Tax Injunction Act, in the Court of Appeals the whole question seemed to disappear, though it goes to the heart of judicial authority. Neither party, we are advised, addressed the point and neither opinion in the Court of Appeals, majority or dissent, mentions it. While the question of the Act’s applicability was not raised in the State’s petition for certiorari, the United States, in an amicus brief in support of the petition, called our attention to the point. In granting the petition, we asked the parties to address, in addition to the merits, whether the District Court should have dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in light of the Act. 519 U. S. 805 (1997).

We have interpreted and applied the Tax Injunction Act as a “jurisdictional rule” and a “broad jurisdictional barrier.” Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Flathead Reservation, 425 U. S. 463, 470 (1976). In dismissing an action filed m a United States District Court to challenge state taxes we held that the Tax Injunction Act “deprived the District Court of jurisdiction to hear [the] challenges.” California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U. S. 393, 396 (1982). Further, we found no jurisdiction even though the defendant State argued in favor of the federal court’s jurisdiction. Id., at 417, n. 38. In explaining our holding in Grace Brethren that declaratory relief is as violative of the Tax Injunction Act as an injunction itself, we said the Act was first and foremost a vehicle “ ‘to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes.’” Id., at 408-409 (quoting Rosewell v. LaSalle Nat. Bank, 450 U. S. 503, 522 (1981)). These statements underscore the fundamental importance of the restrictions imposed by the Tax Injunction Act, restrictions we proceed to address.

II

The federal balance is well served when the several States define and elaborate their own laws through their own courts and administrative processes and without undue interference from the Federal Judiciary. The States’ interest in the integrity of their own processes is of particular moment respecting questions of state taxation. In our constitutional system, the power of the State to tax is a concurrent power. “That the power of taxation is one of vital importance; that it is retained by the States; that it is not abridged by the grant of a similar power to the government of the Union; that it is to be concurrently exercised by the two governments: are truths which have never been denied.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 425 (1819). The power to tax is basic to the power of the State to exist. Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U. S. 435, 444 (1940); Rosewell, supra, at 522.

Enactment of the Tax Injunction Act of 1937 reflects a congressional concern to confine federal-court intervention in state government, a concern prominent after the Court’s ruling in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), that the Eleventh Amendment is not in all cases a bar to federal-court interference with individual state officers alleged to have acted in violation of federal law. See Rosewell, supra, at 522, n. 28; Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 104-115 (1971) (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Given the systemic importance of the federal balance, and given the basic principle that statutory language is to be enforced according to its terms, federal courts must guard against interpretations of the Tax Injunction Act which might defeat its purpose and text.

Where the Government of the United States is a party, of course, the other side of the federal balance must be considered. In our constitutional system the National Government has sovereign interests of its own. The necessity to respect the authority and prerogatives of the National Government underlies the now settled rule that the Tax Injunction Act is not a constraint on federal judicial power when the United States sues to protect itself and its instrumentalities from state taxation. The importance of allowing the United States to proceed in federal court to determine tax immunity questions is no doubt one reason why the exception was established with little discussion in Department of Employment v. United States. There the Court indicated the exception was consistent with a well-settled understanding that the Government is not bound by its own legislative restrictions on the exercise of remedial rights unless the intent to bind it is express. 385 U. S., at 358, n. 6 (citing United States v. Livingston, 179 F. Supp. 9, 12 (EDSC 1959) (three-judge District Court), aff’d, 364 U. S. 281 (1960); United States v. Arlington County, 326 F. 2d 929, 931 (CA4 1964); United States v. Bureau of Revenue of N. M., 291 F. 2d 677, 679 (CA10 1961)). See also Dollar Savings Bank v. United States, 19 Wall. 227, 239 (1874). The Court concluded, “in accord with an unbroken line of authority, and convincing evidence of legislative purpose, that § 1341 does not act as a restriction upon suits by the United States to protect itself and its instrumentalities from unconstitutional state exactions.” 385 U. S., at 358 (footnotes omitted). In all the District Court and Court of Appeals cases cited in Department of Employment, the United States was either the sole plaintiff or a co-plaintiff. The United States had joined as co-plaintiff with the Red Cross in Department of Employment, arguing that the Red Cross was a federal instrumentality immune from state taxation, and we held that the Tax Injunction Act did not deprive the District Court of jurisdiction to decide the merits and order relief.

We have not before now considered whether federal in-strumentalities fall under the exception to the Tax Injunction Act when they sue without the United States as co-plaintiff. In Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, we reasoned that when the United States is not a party, the mere fact that a party challenging the tax has interests closely related to those of the Federal Government is not enough, in and of itself, to avoid the bar of the Act. We considered whether the Act barred the exercise of federal judicial power when Indian tribes were challenging the lawfulness and constitutionality of certain state taxes. Although the tribes did not have formal designations as instru-mentalities of the United States, we assumed the interests they asserted were aligned with the interests of the Federal Government. Reserving the question of the precise significance of a federal instrumentality designation, the Court said this congruence of interests was not sufficient to give the tribes an exemption from the Act. 425 U. S., at 471-472. We went on to find the tribes exempt from the Act only because a second federal statute granted sweeping federal-court jurisdiction where an Indian tribe was a party. Id., at 472 (citing 28 U. S. C. § 1362 (1976 ed.)). Moe is instructive here. As in Moe, the PCA’s say their own mission is defined and controlled by federal law and that their interests are the same as those of the United States. We conclude here, as we did in Moe, that this argument is insufficient to justify an exception to the Tax Injunction Act.

True, important consequences flow from the congressional decision to designate a PCA formed pursuant to statute as “an instrumentality of the United States.” 12 U. S. C. § 2071(b)(7). The tax immunity a PCA has under § 2077 is a permitted consequence of its status as a federal instrumentality. An instrumentality of the United States can enjoy the benefits and immunities conferred by explicit statutes, however, without the further inference that the instrumentality has all of the rights and privileges of the National Government.

Respondents attempt to counter this point by arguing that NLRB v. Nash-Finch Co., 404 U. S. 138 (1971), is applicable here and supports their cause. Nash-Finch involved not the Tax Injunction Act, but the Anti-Injunction Act, the statute which restricts the authority of federal courts to enjoin proceedings in state courts. 28 U. S. C. § 2283. The Anti-Injunction Act provides: “A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments.” Just as the Tax Injunction Act is inapplicable where the United States is a party, a parallel rule prevails under §2283. Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States, 352 U. S. 220, 225-226 (1957) (The restrictions of § 2283 are inapplicable in a suit brought by the National Government). The question in Nash-Finch was whether the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) came within the United States’ exception to §2283. We held it did. In so ruling, we observed the NLRB’s regulatory power “pre-empts the field.” 404 U. S., at 144; see also id., at 147 (“The exclusiveness of the federal domain is clear . . .”). The case does not aid the PCA’s, for their powers are far different from those of the NLRB. As will be discussed in more detail below, the PCA’s more closely resemble the private entities Nash-Finch distinguished from the Federal Government and its agencies. Id., at 146.

As to the Tax Injunction Act itself, the Courts of Appeals have adopted different standards over time for deciding whether a federal instrumentality may sue in federal court to enjoin state taxation where the United States is not a co-plaintiff. Under the most restrictive approach, there is no exception to the Tax Injunction Act for federal instrumentalities unless the United States sues as a co-plaintiff. See, e. g., United States v. State Tax Commission, 481 F. 2d 963, 975 (CA1 1973) (“It is reasonable, as a prerequisite to by-passing normal state tax collection and litigation channels, that [the instrumentalities] persuade the Attorney General of the United States ... to join in their claim”); Housing Authority of Seattle v. State of Washington, Dept. of Revenue, 629 F. 2d 1307, 1311 (CA9 1980) (agreeing with the First Circuit in State Tax Commission that “such joinder [with the United States as co-plaintiff] is necessary before a federal instrumentality can overcome the restrictions” of the Tax Injunction Act). After its decision in State Tax Commission, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit modified what had seemed to be a bright-line rule to produce a different test: “[E]ach instrumentality must be examined in light of its governmental role and the wishes of Congress as expressed in relevant legislation.” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston v. Commissioner of Corporations and Taxation of Mass., 499 F. 2d 60, 64 (1974). Federal Reserve banks, the Court of Appeals noted, are not analogous to private corporations, but rather are “plainly and predominantly fiscal arms of the federal government” with interests “indistinguishable from those of the sovereign.” Id., at 62. The court also pointed to a federal statute giving a Federal Reserve bank “unrestricted access to the district courts,” id., at 63 (referring to 12 U. S. C. § 632); and to the Federal Reserve System’s unusual position “outside the executive chain of command,” 499 F. 2d, at 63. See also Bank of New England Old Colony v. Clark, 986 F. 2d 600, 602-603 (CA1 1993) (describing Federal Reserve bank standard as a “flexible test”).

Under any of the tests we have described, PCA’s would not be exempt from the restrictions of the Tax Injunction Act. The United States has not joined as a co-plaintiff and indeed opposes the District Court’s exercise of jurisdiction. We need not inquire whether the holding of Nash-Finch — to the effect that an agency with broad regulatory power is exempt from §2283 when it sues in its own name and not through the Attorney General or in the name of the United States — is applicable as well to the Tax Injunction Act. Whatever may be the rule under the Tax Injunction Act where a federal agency or body with substantial regulatory authority brings suit, PCA’s are not entities of that description. PCA’s are not granted the right to exercise government regulatory authority but rather serve specific commercial and economic purposes long associated with various corporations chartered by the United States. Other examples include the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company (chartered under an Act of 1866 to construct and maintain a railroad and telegraph line from Springfield, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean, see Smith v. Reeves, 178 U. S. 436, 436-437 (1900)); the Rural Telephone Bank (7 U. S. C. § 941); the United States Enrichment Corporation (42 U. S. C. § 2297a, repealed effective on date of privatization, Pub. L. 104-134, §3116, 110 Stat. 1321). Indeed, in Smith v. Reeves, we treated the federally chartered corporation as a private citizen, not as an arm of the United States, and held it to be subject to the Eleventh Amendment bar on suits against States. 178 U. S., at 446-447.

The PCAs’ business is making commercial loans, and all their stock is owned by private entities. Their interests are not coterminous with those of the Government any more than most commercial interests. Despite their formal and undoubted designation as instrumentalities of the United States, and despite their entitlement to those tax immunities accorded by the explicit statutory mandate, PCA’s do not have or exercise power analogous to that of the NLRB or any of the departments or regulatory agencies of the United States. This suffices for us to conclude that instrumentality status does not in and of itself entitle an entity to the same exemption the United States has under the Tax Injunction Act.

The Tax Injunction Act is grounded in the need of States to administer their fiscal affairs without undue interference from federal courts. As all parties concede, respondents have a “speedy, plain, and efficient remedy” in state court. In holding that the PCA’s are subject to the Act’s restriction on federal-court jurisdiction, we further the State’s interests without sacrificing those of the Government of the United States.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.