Page:Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin.pdf/15

12 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.