1
According to petitioners, the catchall phrase “other foreign or domestic government” might simply capture entities created through “interstate compacts,” which cannot neatly be characterized as a State or an instrumentality of a State under §101(27)’s enumerated list. Id., at 40–41 (internal quotation marks omitted). Interpreted in that fashion, petitioners maintain, the catchall phrase would exclude governmental entities that are not purely foreign or purely domestic—like tribes or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Tr. of Oral Arg. 8–9.
If this interpretation of the statute sounds far-fetched, that is because it is. To find petitioners’ construction plausible, we would have to interpret “other foreign or domestic government” to impose a rigid division between foreign governments on the one hand and domestic governments on the other, leaving out any governmental entity that may have both foreign and domestic characteristics (like tribes or the IMF). But Congress has expressly instructed that the word “or,” as used in the Code, “is not exclusive.” 11 U. S. C. §102(5). As a result, we have serious doubts that Congress meant for §101(27) to elicit the laser focus on “or” that petitioners’ reading of “foreign or domestic” would entail.[1]
- ↑ Our dissenting colleague puts forth two hypotheticals that supposedly cast doubt on this conclusion. See post, at 13–14 (opinion of Gorsuch, J.). The first involves choosing a pet that is “ ‘small or a dog,’ ” while the second concerns an offer to have “chocolate or vanilla” ice cream. Ibid. But these hypotheticals are not remotely analogous to “foreign or domestic.” For one thing, the terms “foreign” and “domestic” are two poles on a spectrum. See supra, at 5–6. Neither “small” and “dog” nor “chocolate” and “vanilla” fit that bill. For another, whereas the pairing of “foreign” and “domestic” often covers the waterfront, see supra, at 6, the dissent’s hypothetical pairings do not have that same effect. And unlike animals (which need not be small or doglike) or ice creams (which need not be chocolate or vanilla), every government must be foreign or domestic to some degree; the question is just where on the spectrum it
