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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 25, 2013 Decided January 17, 2014

No. 12-5379

ERIK O. AUTOR, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

PENNY SUE PRITZKER, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS 

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:11-cv-01593)

Charles A. Rothfeld argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellants. With him on the briefs was Joseph P. Minta.

Michael S. Raab, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Ronald 

C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, Mark B. Stern and Daniel 

Tenny, Attorneys.

Before: TATEL and BROWN, Circuit Judges, and 

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

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TATEL, Circuit Judge: President Obama, seeking to reduce 

the “culture of special interest access,” directed executive 

agency heads to bar federally registered lobbyists from serving 

on advisory committees. Appellants, federally registered 

lobbyists wishing appointment to one type of advisory 

committee—Industry Trade Advisory Committees 

(ITACs)—challenge the constitutionality of the presidential

ban. Because the ban requires Appellants to limit their exercise 

of a constitutional right—in this case, the First Amendment 

right to petition government—in order to qualify for a 

governmental benefit—in this case, ITAC membership—we 

reverse the district court’s premature dismissal of the 

complaint and remand for that court to determine in the first 

instance whether the government’s interest in excluding 

federally registered lobbyists from ITACs outweighs any 

impingement on Appellants’ constitutional rights.

I.

Created by the Trade Act of 1974, which requires the 

President to “seek information and advice from representative 

elements of the private sector . . . with respect to” trade policy, 

19 U.S.C. § 2155(a)(1), ITACs play a significant role in 

shaping international trade agreements. See id. § 2155(c)(2). 

The sixteen industry-specific ITACs run the gamut of 

industrial interests from Aerospace Equipment to Consumer 

Goods to Service and Financial Industries. See International 

Trade Administration, List of Industry Trade Advisory 

Committees, available at 

www.ita.doc.gov/itac/committees/index.asp (last visited Jan. 

10, 2014). In addition to meeting “at the call of the United 

States Trade Representative,” 19 U.S.C. § 2155(d), ITACs 

prepare reports for the President, Congress, and the Trade 

Representative on whether proposed trade agreements provide 

for “equity and reciprocity within” the committees’ sector, id.

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§ 2155(e)(1), (3). Although ITAC advice is non-binding, the 

Act requires the Trade Representative to “inform the advisory 

committees of significant departures from such advice or 

recommendations made.” Id. § 2155(i)(2).

Unlike many advisory committees, ITACs exist for the 

very purpose of reflecting the viewpoints of private industry. 

According to the Trade Act, the “committees shall, insofar as is 

practicable, be representative of all industry, labor, 

agricultural, or service interests.” Id. § 2155(c)(2). Applicants 

for ITAC membership must be sponsored by a firm or 

organization engaged in trade or trade policy. See Request for 

Nominations for the Industry Trade Advisory Committees 

(ITACs), 75 Fed. Reg. 24,584, 24,585 (May 5, 2010). ITAC 

members serve in a “representative capacity presenting the 

views and interests of a U.S. entity or U.S. organization.” Id. It 

should thus come as no surprise that the Aerospace Equipment 

ITAC includes representatives of Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, 

Gulfstream, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Bell 

Aerospace. Likewise, the Energy and Energy Services ITAC 

includes representatives of Halliburton, Chevron, General 

Electric, the National Mining Association, and the Nuclear 

Energy Institute. See International Trade Administration, List 

of Industry Trade Advisory Committees, available at 

www.ita.doc.gov/itac/committees/index.asp (last visited Jan. 

10, 2014).

Although Congress created ITACs to represent the views 

of the private sector, President Obama directed “the heads of 

executive departments and agencies not to make any new 

appointments or reappointments of federally registered 

lobbyists to advisory committees.” Presidential Memorandum, 

Lobbyists on Agency Boards and Commissions, 75 Fed. Reg. 

35,955 (June 18, 2010). In so directing, the President sought to 

further his commitment to change “the culture of 

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special-interest access” that is furthered by lobbyists’ “service 

in privileged positions within the executive branch.” Id. “My 

administration,” the President explained, “is committed to 

reducing the undue influence of special interests that for too 

long has shaped the national agenda and drowned out the 

voices of ordinary Americans.” Id. Pursuant to the President’s 

directive, and setting the stage for this litigation, the 

Commerce Secretary and the Trade Representative prohibit 

federally registered lobbyists from serving on ITACs. See 

Request for Nominations for the Industry Trade Advisory 

Committees (ITACs), 75 Fed. Reg. at 24,585.

Contrary to popular belief, only certain lobbyists are

required to be federally registered. The Lobbying Disclosure 

Act of 1995 (LDA) requires that lobbyists register if they (1) 

are employed by a client for compensation, (2) have made 

more than one lobbying contact on behalf of such client, and 

(3) have spent at least twenty percent of their time for that 

client working on lobbying activities during a three-month 

period. 2 U.S.C. § 1602(10). In other words, lobbyists have no 

obligation to register if they limit their lobbying activities to at 

most twenty percent of their time working for any particular 

client.

Appellants, six federally registered lobbyists wishing to 

serve on ITACs, sued to enjoin the ban. Relying on Perry v. 

Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972), which limits the 

government’s power to condition governmental benefits on 

recipients’ relinquishment of constitutionally protected rights, 

Appellants alleged that the ban violates the First Amendment 

and the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment by 

“denying the benefit of committee service to individuals whose 

exercise of the right to petition triggers the LDA’s registration 

requirement.” Complaint ¶ 44.

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The district court dismissed the complaint pursuant to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The court first found 

Appellants’ claims foreclosed by Minnesota State Board for 

Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984), in which 

the Supreme Court held that “the Constitution does not grant 

members of the public any particular right to be heard by 

public bodies making policy decisions.” Autor v. Blank, 892 F. 

Supp. 2d 264, 273–74 (D.D.C. 2012) (citing Knight, 465 U.S. 

at 283). The court went on to conclude that even if Knight left 

open Appellants’ unconstitutional conditions claim, the 

complaint nonetheless failed to establish both “that service on 

an ITAC is a valuable government benefit,” id. at 275, and that 

Appellants were denied this benefit “on a basis that infringes 

upon their constitutionally protected rights,” id. at 268. Finding 

that the lobbyist ban implicated no fundamental rights, the 

court also rejected Appellants’ Fifth Amendment equal 

protection claim. See id. at 282–84.

On appeal, Appellants challenge the dismissal of both 

their First Amendment and Fifth Amendment claims. We 

review Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals de novo, see St. Marks Place 

Housing Co., Inc. v. U.S. Department of Housing & Urban 

Development, 610 F.3d 75, 79 (D.C. Cir. 2010), “accept[ing] as 

true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint and 

draw[ing] all inferences in favor of the nonmoving party,” City 

of Harper Woods Employees’ Retirement System v. Olver, 589 

F.3d 1292, 1298 (D.C. Cir. 2009).

II.

At the outset, we think it important to put the issue 

before us in its proper context. Reading the government’s brief 

and listening to oral argument, during which counsel asserted 

that the Constitution imposes “very, very few restrictions” on 

the “President’s [power to] choos[e] [his] advisors,” Oral Arg. 

Tr. 16, one might get the impression that this case is about the 

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President’s ability to select his Chief of Staff or White House 

Counsel. Nothing could be further from the truth. The question 

before us concerns only the President’s choice of individuals to 

serve on congressionally created advisory committees—more 

specifically, Industry Trade Advisory Committees.

According to Appellants, we may resolve this case 

through a straightforward application of Perry’s

“unconstitutional conditions” doctrine. See Perry, 408 U.S. at 

597. If, as they allege, ITAC service qualifies as a 

governmental benefit and the registered-lobbyist ban requires 

them to curtail their right to petition government to receive this 

benefit, then, they contend, the government has 

unconstitutionally burdened their exercise of this right. Before 

addressing this question, however, we must consider the 

government’s antecedent argument, embraced by the district 

court, that the Supreme Court’s recognition in Knight of the 

government’s freedom to choose its advisors forecloses 

application of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine here.

Knight concerned a Minnesota law requiring public 

employers to “meet and confer” with their professional 

employees on employment-related policy issues. Knight, 465 

U.S. at 274. But if an employee bargaining unit had an 

exclusive bargaining representative, i.e., a union, the law 

prohibited the employer from “meeting and conferring” with 

anyone other than the union’s representatives. Id. at 274–75. In 

Knight, community college teachers who had declined to join 

their union and were therefore prohibited from “meeting and 

conferring” with their employer on their own challenged this 

provision. Although the union allowed both union and 

nonunion members “to nominate candidates, to run for 

election, and to vote for” each “meet and confer”

representative, id. at 280 n.5, the teachers alleged that 

Minnesota unconstitutionally burdened their First Amendment 

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rights by limiting participation in the “meet and confer”

process to representatives chosen by the union, id. at 279.

Declining to “recognize a constitutional right to 

participate directly in government policymaking [that] would 

work a revolution in existing government practices,” id. at 284, 

the Supreme Court rejected the teachers’ “principal claim . . . 

that they ha[d] a right to force officers of the State” to listen to 

them, id. at 282. “Absent statutory restrictions,” the Court 

elaborated, “the State must be free to consult or not to consult 

whomever it pleases.” Id. at 285. The Court then rejected the 

teachers’ claim that the union’s ability to exclude nonmembers 

from participation in the “meet and confer” sessions burdened 

nonmember teachers’ speech and associational rights. The 

Court reasoned that the union’s ability to choose 

“representatives who share[d] its views on the issues to be 

discussed with the State . . . no more unconstitutionally 

inhibit[ed] [the teachers’] speech than voters’ power to reject a 

candidate for office inhibits the candidate’s speech,” id. at 289, 

and that any pressure the teachers might have felt to join the 

union was constitutionally insignificant because it was the 

same pressure any individual feels to join a privileged group, 

id. at 289–90.

The government argues that Knight controls this case. 

Like the state in Knight, the government insists it has “simply 

restricted the class of persons to whom it will listen in its 

making of policy.” Appellee’s Br. 14 (quoting Knight, 465 

U.S. at 282) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, the 

government argues, it makes no difference if its decision 

pressures Appellants to limit their lobbying activities, as 

Knight found this very type of pressure constitutionally 

insignificant. According to the government, therefore, it 

violated no constitutional right when it “determin[ed] that it 

would make best use of the advisory committee mechanism by 

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receiving information and advice from persons who are not 

already paid to regularly share their views with federal 

officials.” Appellee’s Br. 14–15.

Knight does not control this case. Acknowledging they 

have no constitutional right to make the government listen to 

them, Appellants argue that the government—required by the 

Trade Act to establish ITACs for the very purpose of hearing

the views of industry—may not deny them the benefit of ITAC 

service based on their exercise of the constitutional right to 

petition government. Unlike in Knight, in which the alleged 

burden on the teachers’ First Amendment rights resulted from 

the union’s exclusion of them from the “meet and confer”

committees, here any burden on Appellants’ constitutional 

rights results directly from the government’s decision to bar 

them from ITAC membership. True, the state in Knight was 

indirectly responsible for the alleged burden on the teachers’

constitutional rights, but as the Court explained, any indirect 

burden was inherent in the state’s decision to listen to some but 

not all. See Knight, 465 U.S. at 289–90. Put another way,

although the Supreme Court recognized that the government 

may choose to hear from some groups at the expense of others, 

it never addressed the question we face here—whether, in so 

doing, the government may also limit the constitutional rights 

of those to whom it chooses to listen.

The situation before us is more analogous to cases in 

which the government sought to curtail the First Amendment 

rights of government employees than it is to Knight. Although 

the government generally has authority to choose whom it 

hires, the Supreme Court has repeatedly subjected employment 

conditions restricting fundamental rights to constitutional 

scrutiny, at least when the government fills non-partisan, 

non-policymaking positions. See, e.g., Elrod v. Burns, 427 

U.S. 347, 372–73 (1976) (holding patronage dismissals of 

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non-policymaking public employees unconstitutional);

Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 574–75 (1968) 

(holding unconstitutional city’s restriction on employee speech 

on matter of public concern); see also Williams v. Rhodes, 393 

U.S. 23, 29 (1968) (recognizing that although “the Constitution 

is filled with provisions that grant Congress or the States 

specific power[s] . . . these granted powers are always subject 

to the limitation that they may not be exercised in a way that 

violates other specific provisions of the Constitution”). Indeed, 

were the government correct about Knight, it would be free, as 

its counsel virtually conceded at oral argument, to exclude 

committee members based on race, gender, or political 

expression. Oral Arg. Tr. 14–16.

Having rejected the government’s Knight argument, we 

turn to Appellants’ claim that the lobbyist ban imposes an 

unconstitutional condition on their right to petition 

government. As formulated in Perry v. Sindermann, the 

unconstitutional conditions doctrine provides that “even 

though a person has no ‘right’ to a valuable governmental 

benefit and even though the government may deny him the 

benefit for any number of reasons, . . . [it] may not deny a 

benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally 

protected interests.” 408 U.S. at 597. The district court 

dismissed this claim, finding that the ban neither deprived 

Appellants of a valuable benefit nor burdened their right to 

petition. We disagree on both counts.

As to the first issue, the government does not defend the 

district court’s conclusion that ITAC service fails to qualify as 

a governmental benefit. Indeed, ITAC membership comes with 

many important benefits. For example, ITAC members are 

able to play a significant role in shaping national trade policy: 

they consult with top-government officials before, during, and 

after the conclusion of trade negotiations; they submit reports 

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assessing the impact of trade agreements on industry; and the 

Trade Representative is required to respond to these reports. 

See 19 U.S.C. § 2155(d), (e)(1),(3), (i). Also, as Appellants 

explained to the district court, ITAC members receive 

“valuable expertise,” “experience,” and “a resume-enhancing 

characteristic.” Autor, 892 F. Supp. 2d at 276. True, as the 

district court pointed out, such benefits may not be quantifiable 

in the same way as tax exemptions, welfare payments, and 

other benefits the Supreme Court has found to implicate the 

unconstitutional conditions doctrine. See id. at 277. But as the 

district court also acknowledged, “neither the Supreme Court 

nor this Circuit has required the benefit in an unconstitutional 

conditions claim to have measurable economic worth.” Id. at 

275. This is hardly surprising given that the doctrine’s 

foundational principle—that the government “may not deny a 

benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally 

protected interests . . . to produce a result which (it) could not 

command directly,” Perry, 408 U.S. at 597 (internal quotations 

omitted)—does not turn on whether the benefit has economic

worth. Even if it has none, so long as it has value to those who 

seek it, as ITAC membership does to Appellants, then the 

government can use its power to withhold the benefit to 

pressure Appellants to forgo constitutionally protected 

activity. Our sister circuits have thus extended the doctrine to a 

broad range of non-monetary benefits and none, to our 

knowledge, has found a benefit too insignificant. See, e.g.,

Cuffley v. Mickes, 208 F.3d 702, 707 (8th Cir. 2000) 

(participation in adopt-a-highway program); Hyland v. 

Wonder, 972 F.2d 1129, 1135–36 (9th Cir. 1992) (volunteer 

position).

As to the second basis for the district court’s decision, the 

government acknowledges, as it must, that registered lobbyists 

are protected by the First Amendment right to petition. See 

Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. Pearson, 390 F.2d 489, 491 (D.C. Cir. 

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1968) (holding lobbying is protected by the right to petition 

government); see also Riley v. National Federation of the Blind 

of North Carolina, Inc., 487 U.S. 781, 801 (1988) (holding that 

First Amendment rights are “not lost merely because 

compensation is received”). Its disagreement with Appellants

centers on whether the ban infringes this right. For its part, the

district court concluded that the ban “does not curtail protected 

activity,” reasoning that “the statutory duty to register is not 

directly correlated with the amount, nature, or content of any 

lobbyist’s protected activity.” Autor, 892 F. Supp. 2d at 281–

82. Again, the government does not defend the district court’s 

reasoning. Instead, it argues that the ban imposes no 

unconstitutional burden, citing in support Lyng v. International 

Union, 485 U.S. 360 (1988), one of a series of decisions 

holding that “when the government appropriates public funds 

to establish a program,” Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 194 

(1991), its “decision not to [use program funds to] subsidize 

the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right.”

Lyng v. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & 

Agricultural Implement Workers of America, 485 U.S. 360, 

368 (1988) (quoting Regan v. Taxation with Representation of 

Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 549 (1983)) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). In Lyng, the Supreme Court held that the 

government could deny food stamp increases to striking 

workers without running afoul of the First Amendment. Id. at 

369–73; see also Regan, 461 U.S. at 551 (upholding denial of 

tax exemption). But unlike in Lyng and the other subsidy cases, 

in which the government withheld a financial benefit from the 

plaintiffs, here the government pays ITAC members nothing. 

They serve as volunteers, absorbing even their out of pocket 

expenses. See Request for Nominations for the Industry Trade 

Advisory Committees (ITACs), 75 Fed. Reg. at 24,585. The 

Supreme Court has never extended the subsidy doctrine to 

situations not involving financial benefits, and the government 

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offers no reason, nor can we think of one, why we should do so 

here.

The government also cites Lyng for the proposition that 

the lobbyist ban cannot “be thought to constitute significant 

pressure to give up one’s status as a paid registered lobbyist.”

Appellee’s Br. 17. As Appellants point out, however, this 

argument is premature. In their complaint, Appellants 

plausibly alleged that the ban pressures them to limit their 

constitutional right to petition, and given that the district court 

dismissed the complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6)—by 

contrast, the Supreme Court resolved Lyng at summary 

judgment—we must accept this allegation as true. See City of 

Harper Woods, 589 F.3d at 1298.

The government next argues that the availability of a 

“wide variety of alternative settings”—such as public 

meetings, hearings, and trade “road shows”—in which 

“registered lobbyists remain free” to participate in shaping 

trade policy, Appellee’s Br. 18, “underscore the absence of any 

First Amendment concerns,” Appellee’s Br. 20. But as 

Appellants point out, their ability to participate in trade policy 

in a variety of other ways is no answer to their argument that 

banning them from ITAC membership deprives them of “an 

especially effective way to affect government policy.”

Appellants’ Reply Br. 19. In support, Appellants 

cite—properly in our view—Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169 

(1972), in which the Supreme Court held that a public 

university’s decision to deny a student organization official 

recognition burdened the student group notwithstanding the 

group’s ability to associate in other ways. See id. at 183. The 

government has no answer to Healy.

To sum up, then, Appellants have pled a viable First 

Amendment unconstitutional conditions claim. That is, they

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allege that the government has conditioned their eligibility for 

the valuable benefit of ITAC membership on their willingness 

to limit their First Amendment right to petition government.

But this does not end our inquiry. The Supreme Court has 

long sanctioned government burdens on public employees’

exercise of constitutional rights “that would be plainly 

unconstitutional if applied to the public at large.” United States 

v. National Treasury Employees Union, 513 U.S. 454, 465 

(1995) (citing Pickering, 391 U.S. 563). Although ITAC 

service differs from public employment, the government’s 

interest in selecting its advisors, see Knight, 465 U.S. at 285,

implicates similar considerations that we believe may justify 

similar restrictions on individual rights. As the Supreme Court 

explained in Pickering v. Board of Education, the “problem in 

[these cases] is to arrive at a balance between the interests of 

the [individual] . . . and the interest of the State.” 391 U.S. at 

568. And where, as here, the government imposes a “blanket”

ban on protected activity, its “burden is greater” than in an 

ordinary Pickering case. National Treasury Employees Union, 

513 U.S. at 468.

The government justifies the ban on the grounds that it 

“directly relates to the purposes and efficacy of the ITACs as 

advisers” by “enabl[ing] the government to listen to 

individuals who have experience in the industry but who are 

not registered lobbyists, and are thus not otherwise as actively 

engaged in the political and administrative process.”

Appellee’s Br. 16–17. This rationale, Appellants respond, is 

“barely intelligible” because ITAC members “serve in a 

representative capacity.” Appellants’ Reply Br. 13 (emphasis 

added). Appellants also urge us to undertake the Pickering 

balancing ourselves. But given that the issue is virtually 

unbriefed, that the district court dismissed the complaint 

pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), and that the challenged ban 

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represents a major presidential initiative, we believe the wisest 

course of action is to remand for the district court to develop a 

factual record and undertake the Pickering analysis in the first 

instance. In so doing, the district court should ask the parties to 

focus on the justification for distinguishing, as the lobbyist ban 

does, between corporate employees (who may represent their 

employers on ITACs) and the registered lobbyists those same 

corporations retain (who may not). The court may also want to 

ask the government to explain how banning lobbyists from 

committees composed of representatives of the likes of Boeing 

and General Electric protects the “voices of ordinary 

Americans.” Presidential Memorandum, 75 Fed. Reg. at 

35,955.

We have one loose end to tie up. As noted at the outset, in 

addition to their First Amendment claim, Appellants pled a 

Fifth Amendment equal protection claim. Because they have 

plausibly alleged that the ban denies them a benefit available to 

others on account of their exercise of a fundamental right, we 

must reverse the district court’s dismissal of their equal 

protection claim as well. See Tele-Communications of Key 

West, Inc. v. United States, 757 F.2d 1330, 1340 (D.C. Cir. 

1985) (allegation of differential treatment without satisfactory 

justification states equal protection claim); see also Police 

Department of City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 94–95 

(1972) (analyzing city’s differential treatment of plaintiff’s 

picketing under Equal Protection Clause). Although we can 

think of good reasons why the Pickering balancing test should 

apply to both claims, see Rogers v. Corbett, 468 F.3d 188, 

193–94 (3d Cir. 2006) (abandoning traditional tiers of equal 

protection scrutiny and applying Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 

U.S. 780 (1983), balancing test to equal protection claim 

challenging ballot access restriction), this issue is also 

unbriefed, and we think it best to leave it too for the district 

court to wrestle with should the parties choose to pursue it.

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III.

We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion.

So ordered.

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