Opinion of the Court
The anticommandeering doctrine applies “distinctively” to a state court’s adjudicative responsibilities. Printz, 521 U. S., at 907. As we just explained, this distinction is evident in the Supremacy Clause, which refers specifically to state judges. Art. VI, cl. 2. From the beginning, the text manifested in practice: As originally understood, the Constitution allowed Congress to require “state judges to enforce federal prescriptions, insofar as those prescriptions related to matters appropriate for the judicial power.” Printz, 521 U. S., at 907 (emphasis deleted). In Printz, we indicated that this principle may extend to tasks that are “ancillary” to a “quintessentially adjudicative task”—such as “recording, registering, and certifying” documents. Id., at 908, n. 2.
Petitioners reject Printz’s observation, insisting that there is a distinction between rules of decision (which state courts must follow) and recordkeeping requirements (which they can ignore). But Printz described numerous historical examples of Congress imposing recordkeeping and reporting requirements on state courts. The early Congresses passed laws directing state courts to perform certain tasks fairly described as “ancillary” to the courts’ adjudicative duties. For example, state courts were required to process and record applications for United States citizenship. Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, §1, 1 Stat. 103–104. The clerk (or other court official) was required “to certify and transmit” the application to the Secretary of State, along with information about “the name, age, nation, residence and occupation, for the time being, of the alien.” Act of June 18, 1798, §2, 1 Stat. 567. The clerk also had to register aliens seeking naturalization and issue certificates confirming the court’s receipt of the alien’s request for registration. Act of Apr. 14,
the State to make that choice does not transform the documents into something other than a court record.
