Appeals Court Blocks California Law Requiring Federal Agents to Identify Themselves

A federal appeals court on Oct. 14 said a California law requiring federal officers to identify themselves is illegal and ordered a preliminary injunction entered against the statute.

California’s No Vigilantes Act, which requires federal law enforcement officers in California to display identification when on duty, impermissibly regulates the conduct of federal officers, a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit judges said in a 21-page ruling.

“Because Congress has not authorized such legislation, it is barred by intergovernmental immunity,” they wrote.

Intergovernmental immunity prohibits state laws that regulate or discriminate against the federal government, according to court precedent.

California’s attorney general and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

The Ninth Circuit was weighing a request for a preliminary injunction against the law, which was due to take effect in January before California officials agreed to pause its enforcement as courts considered legal challenges.

Certain thresholds need to be met to grant a preliminary injunction, including the likelihood of success in a case.

The Ninth Circuit panel said that the California law runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and that the U.S. government “is certain to succeed” in its legal challenge.

Circuit Judges Mark Bennett, Daniel Collins, and Jacqueline Nguyen, who comprised the panel, unanimously directed the district judge who is overseeing the case to enter a preliminary injunction against the portion of the law that deals with federal officers.

Judge Christina Snyder of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in February blocked a separate law that required officers not to don masks, but denied the government’s request for a preliminary injunction against the No Vigilantes Act.

Snyder concluded that the No Vigilantes Act did not violate the Supremacy Clause and, because it treated federal officers the same as state officers, did not discriminate against the federal government.

Bennett, Collins, and Nguyen in the spring granted an injunction pending the outcome of appeal, finding that the federal government was likely to succeed.

In the new ruling, they said the district judge was wrong when finding the law does not violate the Constitution.

“The Supremacy Clause prohibits States from directly regulating federal operations even when regulating state operations in the same manner,” the panel said.

They added later, “In sum, if a state law directly regulates the governmental conduct of the United States without congressional authorization, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with such functions or operations.”