Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League
Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, 541 U.S. 125 (2004), is a U.S. Supreme Court case decided on March 24, 2004. The case concerned the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to preempt state law under § 253(a) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Facts In 1997, the Missouri state legislature enacted § 392.410(7) of the State's Revised Statutes, which prohibited the sale of telecommunications service by any political subdivisions of the state. The Missouri Municipal League, which consisted of municipalities, municipal organizations, and municipally-owned utilities, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for an order declaring the state statute unlawful and requesting the Commission to preempt under § 253(a) of the Telecommunications Act (47 U.S.C, § 253(a)), which provides that “No State or local statute or regulation, or other State or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service.” After notice and comment, the FCC refused to declare the Missouri statute preempted. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed this decision, finding that the term “entity” in the statute, especially when modified by “any,” manifested sufficiently clear congressional intent to include governmental entities within