Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc.
U.S. Supreme Court · decided July 6, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- July 6, 2020
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Kavanaugh
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
B Plaintiffs next focus on ordinary severability principles. Applying those principles, the question before the Court is whether (i) to invalidate the entire 1991 robocall restriction, as plaintiffs want, or (ii) to invalidate just the 2015 government-debt exception and sever it from the remainder of the statute, as the Government wants. We agree with the Government that we must invalidate the 2015 government-debt exception and sever that exception from the remainder of the statute. To explain why, we begin with general severability principles and then apply those principles to this case. 1 When enacting a law, Congress sometimes expressly addresses severability. For example, Congress may include a severability clause in the law, making clear that the unconstitutionality of one provision does not affect the rest of the law. See, e.g. , 12 U.S.C. § 5302 ; 15 U.S.C. § 78gg ; 47 U.S.C. § 608. Alternatively, Congress may include a nonseverability clause, making clear that the unconstitutionality of one provision means the invalidity of some or all of the remainder of the law, to the extent specified in the text of the nonseverability clause. See, e.g. , 4 U.S.C. § 125 ; note following 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-1 ; 94 Stat. 1797. When Congress includes an express severability or nonseverability clause in the relevant statute, the judicial inquiry is straightforward. At least absent…
Excerpt of a 66,196-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.