Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05051/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05051-0/pdf.json

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 22, 2012 Decided June 28, 2013

No. 12-5031

ROBERT GORDON,

APPELLEE

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ATTORNEY 

GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

Consolidated with 12-5051

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-01092)

Michael P. Abate, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellants/cross-appellees. With him on 

the briefs were Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney 

General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Alisa B. 

Klein and Mark B. Stern, Attorneys. Gerald C. Kell, Special 

Trial Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, entered an 

appearance. 

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Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of New York, Barbara D. 

Underwood, Solicitor General, Steven Wu, Special Counsel to 

the Solicitor General, Irvin B. Nathan, Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for District of Columbia, 

Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of Georgia, David M. Louie, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of 

Hawai=i, Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Idaho, Lisa Madigan, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Illinois, Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Indiana, Michael C. 

Geraghty, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General 

for the State of Alaska, Tom Horne, Attorney General, Office 

of the Attorney General for the State of Arizona, Dustin 

McDaniel, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General 

for the State of Arkansas, Kamala D. Harris, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of 

California, John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Colorado, George Jepsen, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Connecticut, Joseph R. Biden III, Attorney General, Office 

of the Attorney General for the State of Delaware, Lori 

Swanson, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney for the 

State of Minnesota, Jim Hood, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Mississippi, Jon Bruning, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Nebraska, Catherine Cortez Masto, Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the State of Nevada, 

Michael A. Delaney, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of New Hampshire, Gary K. King, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of New Mexico, Roy Cooper, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of North Carolina, Tom Miller, 

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Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Iowa, Derek Schmidt, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Kansas, Jack Conway, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the 

Commonwealth of Kentucky, William J. Schneider, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Maine, 

Douglas F. Gansler, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of Maryland, Martha Coakley, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Bill Schuette, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of 

Michigan, Robert E. Cooper, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Utah, William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, Office for the 

Attorney General for the State of Vermont, Robert M. 

McKenna, Attorney General, Office for the Attorney General 

for the State of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of West 

Virginia, Gregory A. Phillips, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Wyoming, Wayne Stenehjem, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of North Dakota, Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Office 

of the Attorney General for the State of Ohio, E. Scott Pruitt, 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State 

of Oklahoma, Linda L. Kelly, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 

Peter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of Rhode Island, Alan Wilson, Attorney 

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of South 

Carolina, and Marty J. Jackley, Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of South Dakota, were on the 

brief for amici curiae States of New York, et al. in support of 

appellants/cross-appellees.

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Allison M. Zieve and Greg A. Beck were on the brief for 

amici curiae Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, et al. in support 

of appellants/cross-appellees.

Linda Singer was on the brief for amicus curiae City of 

New York in support of appellants/cross-appellees.

Scott A. Sinder was on the brief for amicus curiae National 

Association of Convenience Stores, et al. in support of 

appellants/cross-appellees.

Aaron M. Streett argued the cause for 

appellee/cross-appellant . With him on the briefs were R. Stan 

Mortenson and Sara E. Kropf. Richard P. Sobiecki entered an 

appearance.

Before: GRIFFITH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

Opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting 

in part filed by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

Opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment

filed by Senior Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Robert Gordon owns a business 

that sold tobacco products across state lines. In the district 

court, Gordon sought a preliminary injunction against the 

enforcement of provisions of the Prevent All Cigarette 

Trafficking Act (PACT Act) that require him to pay state and 

local taxes and ban him from sending his products through the 

U.S. mail. Gordon argues that the tax provisions violate the 

Due Process Clause and the Tenth Amendment and that the 

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mail ban runs afoul of the Due Process and Equal Protection 

Clauses.

The district court enjoined the enforcement of the tax 

provisions on due process grounds, but otherwise dismissed 

Gordon’s claims. The government appeals the preliminary 

injunction, and Gordon cross-appeals the district court’s 

dismissal of, and refusal to grant a preliminary injunction for,

his remaining claims. For the reasons set forth below, we 

affirm the district court’s decision in its entirety.

I

A

In most states, the liability for sales and use taxes falls 

primarily on the buyer. U.S. Government Accountability 

Office, GAO-03-714T, Internet Cigarette Sales: Limited 

Compliance and Enforcement of the Jenkins Act Result in Loss 

of State Tax Revenue 3 (2003) (hereinafter GAO Report); 

WALTER HELLERSTEIN, STATE TAXATION ¶ 12.01 (3d ed. 

2012). States require retailers to collect applicable taxes from 

resident buyers and remit the receipts to the state. STEVEN 

MAGUIRE, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERV., STATE 

TAXATION OF INTERNET TRANSACTIONS 1 (2013). A state may 

not, however, impose such an obligation on a retailer with 

whom the state lacks minimum contacts. See Quill Corp. v. 

North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992).1 This means that most 

 1 The minimum contacts requirement derives from the Due 

Process Clause. The Due Process Clause is not the only provision of 

the Constitution that limits states’ authority to tax: the so-called 

Dormant Commerce Clause prohibits states from requiring retailers

with whom the state lacks a “substantial nexus” to collect taxes, 

absent congressional authorization. Quill, 504 U.S. at 311. The 

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out-of-state retailers operate beyond the state’s regulatory 

reach. When they cannot rely on retailers to collect taxes, states 

find it both expensive and difficult to track the smaller 

out-of-state purchases of their residents and to collect the 

applicable taxes directly from them. This creates an 

opportunity for tax evasion that is especially costly when it 

comes to goods like tobacco products that are taxed at high 

rates. GAO Report, supra, at 7. In an effort to eliminate this 

opportunity for tobacco buyers, Congress passed the Jenkins 

Act, which obligates retailers to report each interstate sale of 

tobacco products to the tax authority of the consumer’s state. 

Pub. L. No. 81-363, 63 Stat. 884 (1949).

More than a half century has elapsed since the passage of 

the Jenkins Act, and as the Internet has made it easier for 

consumers to order tobacco products from out-of-state sellers, 

it has become more difficult for states and localities to collect 

taxes on these transactions. H.R. Rep. No. 111-117, at 18-19

(2009); see also GAO Report, supra, at 8, 12-13. Remote 

purchasing also makes it easier for parties to evade age 

restrictions and otherwise traffic in cigarettes illegally. 15 

U.S.C. § 375 note; see also H.R. Rep. No. 111-117, at 18. 

 

Dormant Commerce Clause “nexus” test may be more demanding 

than the Due Process Clause “minimum contacts” test, see id. at 313, 

317-18, but it is not at issue in this case because Gordon challenges a 

federal statute.

My concurring colleague criticizes this footnote as 

“gratuitous.” Post, at 1 (Sentelle, J., concurring). I disclaim any 

attempt to opine on the effect of the Dormant Commerce Clause, 

which, as my colleague correctly points out, is not at issue in this 

case. I include this incontrovertible description of the Supreme 

Court’s Dormant Commerce Clause doctrine only to clarify that the 

Due Process Clause is not the only provision that restricts a state’s 

power to tax out-of-state retailers.

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Finding the Jenkins Act inadequate, H.R. Rep. No. 111-117, at 

18, Congress has sent the PACT Act into the breach. 

The PACT Act is “aimed primarily at combating three 

evils: tobacco sales to minors, [illicit] cigarette trafficking, and 

circumvention of state taxation requirements.” Gordon v. 

Holder (Gordon I), 632 F.3d 722, 723 (D.C. Cir. 2011). It does 

so by restricting “delivery sales” of cigarettes and smokeless 

tobacco products. A delivery sale is any sale in which either the 

purchase or the delivery does not occur face-to-face. 15 U.S.C. 

§ 375(5). Two sections of the Act are at issue here. Section 2a

prohibits delivery sales unless all applicable state and local 

taxes are paid “in advance of the sale, delivery, or tender.” 15 

U.S.C. § 376a(a)(3)-(4), (d). Delivery sellers must comply 

with “all State, local, tribal, and other laws generally applicable 

to sales of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco as if the delivery 

sales occurred entirely within the specific State,” meaning that 

they must collect any taxes that state or local laws require 

in-state retailers to collect. 15 U.S.C. § 376a(a)(3). They are 

subject to federal criminal and civil penalties if the applicable 

taxes have not been paid in advance. 15 U.S.C. § 376a(d)(1)

(prohibition); 15 U.S.C. § 377 (penalties). Section 3 prohibits 

sending tobacco products in the U.S. mail. 18 U.S.C. § 1716E. 

As a result, tobacco delivery sellers must resort to private 

carriers.

B

According to his complaint, Robert Gordon ran a business

selling tobacco products in the Alleghany Territory of the 

Seneca Nation of Indians, located in western New York. After

starting his business in 2002, Gordon accepted orders in 

person, over the phone, and occasionally online. At the height 

of his business, Gordon took in two million dollars in revenue 

every month. Ninety-five percent of that revenue came from 

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sales to customers outside of New York. Gordon claims, 

however, that he has never made a sale into some state and 

local taxing jurisdictions within the United States. See Marcia 

Gordon Second Decl. ¶ 13.

Gordon asserts that his business has suffered under the 

PACT Act. Until recently, Gordon has enjoyed the protection 

of a Western District of New York preliminary injunction 

against the enforcement of the tax provisions,

2 but the mail 

ban has taken its toll. The major private carriers – Federal 

Express, United Parcel Service, and DHL – also refuse to 

deliver tobacco products, leaving Gordon with only more 

expensive couriers. On May 30, 2013, while this appeal was 

pending, Gordon notified the court that he has found it 

necessary to close his business.

C

Gordon’s case has been before us already. Gordon v.

Holder (Gordon I), 632 F.3d 722 (D.C. Cir. 2011). On June 28, 

2010, the day before the PACT Act took effect, Gordon filed a 

complaint alleging that the tax provisions and the mail ban are 

unconstitutional and sought a preliminary injunction against

 2 A group of plaintiffs brought a similar challenge to the PACT 

Act in the Western District of New York, and that district court 

granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the tax 

provisions on due process grounds. See Red Earth LLC v. United 

States, 728 F. Supp. 2d 238 (W.D.N.Y. 2010). The Second Circuit 

upheld the preliminary injunction. Red Earth LLC v. United States, 

657 F.3d 138 (2d Cir. 2011) (per curiam). On June 7, 2013, the 

parties voluntarily stipulated to dismissal with prejudice, and the 

court vacated the injunction. See Stipulation and Order of Dismissal, 

Red Earth LLC v. United States, No. 10-CV-530 (W.D.N.Y. June 7, 

2013).

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their enforcement. Id. at 723. The district court denied 

Gordon’s motion the next day on the sole ground that it was too 

late to stop the Act from taking effect. Id. at 724. Gordon 

appealed.

We remanded Gordon’s motion to the district court to 

consider the factors a plaintiff must demonstrate to obtain a 

preliminary injunction. Gordon I, 632 F.3d at 726. On remand, 

the district court enjoined the tax provisions on due process 

grounds, but dismissed for failure to state a claim Gordon’s

Tenth Amendment challenge to the tax provisions and his due 

process and equal protection challenge to the mail ban. See 

Gordon v. Holder, 826 F. Supp. 2d 279 (D.D.C. 2011). Both 

parties appealed. 

We have jurisdiction to review the resolution of Gordon’s 

motion for a preliminary injunction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1292(a)(1), and the dismissal of his claims under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1291. The closure of Gordon’s business has not mooted his 

appeal. His wife submitted a sworn declaration that she and 

Gordon intend to reopen their business if they prevail, and that 

they remain capable of doing so. Marcia Gordon Third Decl. 

¶¶ 5-7. Gordon’s “uncontroverted intention to operate in the 

future in ways that would violate” the PACT Act “keeps the 

controversy alive.” See Unity08 v. FEC, 596 F.3d 861, 864 

(D.C. Cir. 2010).3

 3 Because we are required to ascertain our jurisdiction before 

proceeding to the merits of an appeal, see Steel Co. v. Citizens for a 

Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83 (1998), our conclusion that the closure of 

Gordon’s business does not moot this case is final. Naturally, facts 

may develop that moot the case in the future, at which point the 

district court would be required to dismiss Gordon’s complaint. But 

the district court is not, as our concurring colleague seems to suggest, 

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II

As we explained in Gordon I, “‘[a] plaintiff seeking a 

preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to 

succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable 

harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of 

the equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the 

public interest.’” 632 F.3d at 724 (quoting Winter v. Natural 

Res. Def. Council, 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008)). We review the 

“district court’s weighing of the four preliminary injunction 

factors and its ultimate decision to issue or deny such relief for 

abuse of discretion.” Davis v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp., 

571 F.3d 1288, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 2009). We review the district 

court’s legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for 

clear error. In re Navy Chaplaincy, 697 F.3d 1171, 1178 (D.C. 

Cir. 2012). But, as the Supreme Court admonished in Ashcroft 

v. ACLU, where “the underlying constitutional question is 

close” we must “uphold the injunction and remand for trial on 

the merits.” 542 U.S. 656, 664-65 (2004); see also Red Earth 

LLC v. United States, 657 F.3d 138, 145 (2d Cir. 2011) (per 

curiam) (“Because the district court reached a reasonable 

conclusion on a close question of law, there is no need for us to 

decide the merits at this preliminary stage.”). Under Ashcroft, 

if the district court’s analysis of the preliminary injunction 

factors reflects a reasonable conclusion about a close question 

of constitutional law, and contains no other legal error, then we 

must send the case back to the district court with the 

preliminary injunction intact. We must refrain from resolving 

novel and difficult constitutional questions, leaving them to be 

 

post, at 1 (Sentelle, J., concurring), free to revisit our holding that the 

case is currently an Article III case or controversy.

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settled at a later stage, with the benefit of further factual and 

legal development.

The government and dissent argue that Ashcroft’s gloss on 

the standard of review applies only to preliminary injunctions

based on the First Amendment, when the government bears a 

special burden to justify the challenged law with a compelling 

governmental interest. Appellants’ Reply Br. 16 n.9 (citing

Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 

546 U.S. 418, 429-30 (2006)). We disagree. The Ashcroft 

Court expressly derived its deferential approach “from 

established standards of appellate review” set out in Walters v. 

National Association of Radiation Survivors – a case involving 

a preliminary injunction based, like the one here, on the Due 

Process Clause. Ashcroft, 542 U.S. at 664 (quoting Walters,

473 U.S. 305, 336 (1985) (O’Connor, J., concurring)). Our 

sister circuits have also applied Ashcroft’s standard of review 

to preliminary injunctions based on due process challenges.

See Red Earth, 657 F.3d at 145 (applying Ashcroft to an 

identical due process challenge to the PACT Act); 

Reproductive Health Serv. of Planned Parenthood of St. Louis 

Region v. Nixon, 428 F.3d 1139, 1145 (8th Cir. 2005) 

(applying Ashcroft to a constitutional challenge to an abortion 

regulation). In fact, we find no case expressly limiting 

Ashcroft’s command to First Amendment challenges. To be 

sure, Ashcroft was a First Amendment case, and certain 

features of the Court’s analysis naturally have no bearing 

outside the First Amendment context. For example, the Court 

affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the plaintiff was 

likely to succeed on the merits because the government had not 

met its special First Amendment burden to justify the 

challenged restrictions on speech with a compelling 

governmental interest. See Gonzales, 546 U.S. at 429 

(describing Ashcroft). But the Ashcroft Court’s description of 

our standard of review is not so restricted. It reflects the 

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general principle that, even though Congress has provided for 

interlocutory review of preliminary injunctions, premature 

resolution of difficult constitutional questions is undesirable.

Cf. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 239 (2009) (describing 

the dangers of premature resolution of constitutional 

questions); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 549-50 (1985) 

(Brennan, J., dissenting) (“[R]esolution of even the most 

abstract legal disputes is advanced by the presence of a 

concrete set of facts.”). Thus, the Court’s command to uphold 

the injunction when “the underlying constitutional question is 

close” binds us today.

We conclude that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion by entering a preliminary injunction. 

A

We begin with the district court’s assessment of Gordon’s 

likelihood of success on the merits, which is left untouched by 

the closure of Gordon’s business. The district court held that 

Gordon is likely to succeed on the merits of his due process 

challenge. Gordon, 826 F. Supp. 2d at 293. Because we find 

the underlying constitutional questions to be close, we affirm 

the district court’s conclusion. See Ashcroft, 542 U.S. at 

664-65.4

 4 For this reason, contrary to my concurring colleague’s 

statement, Part II.A “elevat[es]” nothing “to circuit law.” Post, at 1 

(Sentelle, J., concurring). The legal premises of Gordon’s due 

process challenge remain fair game on remand; we merely conclude 

that the questions they raise are too close to call at this stage. See 

Sherley v. Sebelius, 689 F.3d 776, 781 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (“[T]he 

decision of a trial or appellate court whether to grant or deny a 

preliminary injunction does not constitute law of the case for the 

purpose of further proceedings and does not limit or preclude the 

parties from litigating the merits.” (citation omitted)).

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Gordon argues that the PACT Act “violates nonresident 

tobacco retailers’ due process rights . . . by subjecting them to 

taxes in state and local forums without regard to whether they 

have minimum contacts with the taxing jurisdiction.” 5

Appellee’s Br. 21. This argument presents two substantial and 

novel constitutional questions. First, does the Due Process 

Clause require minimum contacts between the state or local 

taxing authority and the nonresident seller even when the 

federal government is the source of the seller’s duty to collect

taxes? And second, if due process requires minimum contacts 

with the state or local taxing jurisdiction, does a single delivery 

sale to a buyer in that jurisdiction create minimum contacts?

Both are questions of law, but they are matters of first 

impression, and their resolution would benefit from fuller 

factual development below. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 239. We 

do not settle them here because we need not do so to affirm the 

preliminary injunction.

1

Although it is well-settled that the Due Process Clause 

requires minimum contacts between the taxing sovereign and 

the taxed entity, see Miller Bros. Co. v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 

340, 342, 344-45 (1954), this appeal presents a unique twist on 

that principle: with which sovereign must the taxed entity 

possess minimum contacts when there is one sovereign that 

defines and benefits from the tax obligation (in this case, the 

state or local government), and another that imposes and 

 5 As discussed above, Gordon is formally “collecting” taxes 

owed by the buyer and remitting them to the state, rather than paying 

them. Under the Due Process Clause, we treat an obligation to collect 

taxes the same as an obligation to pay taxes. See Quill, 504 U.S. at 

319 (Scalia, J., concurring) (collecting cases).

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enforces the obligation (in this case, the federal government)?

Gordon and the government think that the question can be 

resolved by reference to precedent. We do not. This question is 

novel and close, and we cannot say that the district court’s 

conclusion that Gordon is likely to succeed on the merits is an

abuse of discretion. We are therefore bound to affirm its 

determination. See Ashcroft, 542 U.S. at 664-65.

For its part, the government argues that the Act is 

constitutional because Gordon has minimum contacts with the 

federal government, the sovereign that imposed and will 

enforce his tax obligations. The government correctly points 

out that this is not the first time a seller has challenged 

Congress’s power to oblige participants in interstate commerce 

to comply with state-defined duties. The Supreme Court has 

twice upheld federal laws against similar challenges – one to 

the Ashurst-Sumners Act and one to the Webb-Kenyon Act. 

See Ky. Whip & Collar Co. v. Ill. Cent. Ry. Co., 299 U.S. 334 

(1937); James Clark Distilling Co. v. W. Maryland Ry. Co., 

242 U.S. 311 (1917). The Ashurst-Sumners Act made “it 

unlawful knowingly to transport in interstate or foreign 

commerce goods made by convict labor into any State where 

the goods are intended to be received, possessed, sold, or used 

in violation of its laws.” Kentucky Whip & Collar Co., 299 

U.S. at 343. The Webb-Kenyon Act prohibited “the 

transportation in interstate commerce of all liquor 

‘intended . . . to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner 

used . . . in violation of any law of” the destination state. James 

Clark Distilling Co., 242 U.S. at 321. In both cases, the 

Supreme Court deemed it irrelevant that the states defined the 

companies’ legal duties because the “will” behind the two laws 

was Congress’s, not the states’. Ky. Whip & Collar Co., 299 

U.S. at 347-52; James Clark Distilling Co., 242 U.S. at 326.

The “will” behind the PACT Act is also Congress’s, so the 

government argues that these precedents require us to 

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disregard the role the states play in defining Gordon’s legal 

duties. Appellants’ Br. 25, 27; see also Musser’s Inc. v. United 

States, No. 10-4355, 2011 WL 4467784, *5 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 26, 

2011) (“[T]he Act’s tax-payment requirement is not being 

imposed by a state, acting unilaterally, but by Congress, and 

the legislative due process analysis must reflect the federal 

character of the legislation.”). Because Congress’s “will” 

converts the state taxes into federal duties, the argument goes,

the Due Process Clause demands minimum contacts only 

between Gordon and the federal government.

The government’s argument overlooks an important 

distinction: The challenges to the federal statutes at issue in 

James Clark Distilling Company and Kentucky Whip & Collar 

Company were brought under the Commerce Clause; unlike 

Gordon’s challenge, they raised no issue of minimum contacts 

under the Due Process Clause.6 See James Clark Distilling 

 6 The parties in those cases raised due process challenges, but 

not of the sort we consider here. See James Clark Distilling Co., 242 

U.S. at 320 (“That government can, consistently with the due process 

clause, forbid the manufacture and sale of liquor and regulate its 

traffic, is not open to controversy . . . .”); id. at 332 (“It is only 

necessary to point out that the considerations which we have stated 

dispose of all contentions that the Webb-Kenyon Act is repugnant to 

the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, since what we have 

said concerning that clause in the Fourteenth Amendment as applied 

to state power is decisive.”); Ky. Whip & Collar Co., 299 U.S. at 352 

(“In the congressional action there is nothing arbitrary or capricious 

bringing the statute into collision with the requirements of due 

process of law.”).

The government and the dissent, post, at 2-3 (Kavanaugh, J., 

dissenting), identify several other federal statutes that subject 

out-of-state sellers to state regulation. These statutes likewise have 

never been scrutinized under the Due Process Clause. The one 

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Co., 242 U.S. at 326; Ky. Whip & Collar Co., 299 U.S. at 348. 

“As the Supreme Court has explained, the inquiries are 

analytically distinct and should not be treated as if they were 

synonymous.” Gordon I, 632 F.3d at 725 (citation omitted). 

Congress’s “will” was enough to cure any Commerce Clause

defect in the Ashurst-Sumners and Webb-Kenyon Acts

because Congress may authorize states to regulate interstate 

commerce. Id. But a medicine that cures one ailment may be 

feckless against the next. No doctor would prescribe penicillin

for a broken arm; nor will we uncritically hand out the 

Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause prescription when a 

litigant comes to us complaining of a due process injury. 

Congress’s “will” might cure the due process injury that would 

otherwise arise if the states tried unilaterally to impose taxes on 

Gordon. But to reach that conclusion, we must conduct a closer 

 

exception is the Jenkins Act, which a three judge district court once 

upheld against a due process challenge. See Consumer Mail Order 

Ass’n of Am. v. McGrath, 94 F. Supp. 705 (D.D.C. 1950). But that 

Act is distinguishable because the federal government imposed, 

defined, and enforced the duty, rather than incorporating a duty 

created by state law. See 15 U.S.C. § 376 (setting out detailed 

requirements for the report the seller must submit to the state).

All of these federal laws are distinguishable from the PACT Act 

for an additional reason: the state laws they incorporate do not 

impose a duty to collect taxes; they regulate commercial activity 

instead. The Court has long held that mere contact through the U.S. 

mail provides the “minimum contact” required for a state to assert 

regulatory, as distinguished from taxation, jurisdiction. See

Travelers Health Ass’n v. Virginia ex rel. State Corp. Comm’n, 339 

U.S. 643, 646-50 (1950). For that reason, the laws cited by the 

government and the dissent arguably satisfy the Due Process Clause 

even if Gordon is correct that the Clause requires minimum contacts 

between the seller and the state or locality.

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examination of “the Due Process principles of fair play and 

substantial justice.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Sensitive to the distinctions between the Due Process and 

Commerce Clauses, Gordon argues that the answer to this

question is found in the principles set out in Quill Corp. v. 

North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992). In Quill, an out-of-state 

mail-order catalogue business challenged a state law that 

compelled “every person who engages in regular or systematic 

solicitation of a consumer market in” North Dakota to collect 

use taxes from its customers and remit them to the state. Id. at 

302-03 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even though Quill 

was a Delaware corporation with no physical presence in North 

Dakota, the state statute required the company to collect North 

Dakota use taxes because it engaged in “regular or systematic 

solicitation” in the state, as defined by the statute. Id. (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Quill challenged the law under the 

Due Process and Commerce Clauses. Id. at 303-04. Before 

addressing these separate challenges, the Court discussed the 

differences between the clauses as they relate to the state’s 

power to regulate an entity located in another state. Id. at 

305-06. In dicta, the Court explained: “While Congress . . . 

may authorize state actions that burden interstate commerce, it 

does not similarly have the power to authorize violations of the 

Due Process Clause.” Id. at 305 (internal citations omitted). 

Then, the Court set out the fundamental rule that the Due 

Process Clause requires minimum contacts between the taxing 

sovereign and the taxed entity. Id. at 306. Taken together, 

Gordon argues, the legal principles set forth in Quill prohibit 

Congress from imposing state or local taxes on out-of-state 

sellers who lack minimum contacts with the state or locality. 

Even the government concedes that, after Quill, Congress 

may not authorize a state to impose the duty to collect state use 

taxes on delivery sellers lacking minimum contacts with the 

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18

state. But that is not what the PACT Act does. Section 2a does 

not address itself to states at all. Rather than authorizing the 

states to impose on Gordon a state duty to collect state taxes, 

the PACT Act imposes on Gordon a federal duty to collect 

state taxes. States would enforce their own taxes if Congress 

merely authorized them to tax, whereas they must rely on the 

federal government to do so under the PACT Act. Because this 

distinction may make all the difference under the Due Process 

Clause, the precedent on which Gordon relies does not resolve 

our constitutional question.

Finding no conclusive precedent, we turn to first

principles and there find support for Gordon’s argument that 

due process requires minimum contacts with the state or local 

government that defines the tax.

7 At its most basic level, “[t]he 

 7 My concurring colleague asserts that no court has “undertaken 

th[is] search before affirming the legitimacy of a tax.” Post, at 1 

(Sentelle, J., concurring). We need look no further than Quill to find 

an example of the Supreme Court returning to first principles to 

understand what type of “minimum contacts” serve to legitimate a 

state tax. See, e.g., Quill, 504 U.S. at 312 (comparing the principles 

that animate the Due Process Clause with those that animate the 

Dormant Commerce Clause); see also New York ex rel. Cohn v. 

Graves, 300 U.S. 308, 312-13 (1937); Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & 

Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 555-57 (1895), overruled by U.S. CONST.

amend. XVI. It seems to me that this approach is to be encouraged 

when we are asked to apply existing law to novel cases. See, e.g.,

FCC v. Fox TV Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 531-32 (2009) (Thomas, 

J., concurring) (criticizing the Court for not “looking to first 

principles to evaluate the constitutional question” when faced with 

novel fact patterns); Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 421 (2007) 

(Thomas, J., concurring) (criticizing the Court for tinkering with 

constitutional doctrines without “returning to first principles”); 

United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 552 (1995) (looking to the first 

principles of our structure of government to determine the legitimacy 

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19

Due Process Clause protects an individual’s right to be 

deprived of life, liberty, or property only by the exercise of 

lawful power.” J. McIntyre Mach., Ltd. v. Nicastro, __ U.S. __, 

131 S. Ct. 2780, 2789 (2011) (plurality opinion) (citations 

omitted). When it comes to the power to tax, the elements of 

“lawful power” are (1) “some definite link, some minimum 

connection, between a state and the person, property or 

transaction it seeks to tax,” and (2) a rational relationship 

between “the income attributed to the State for tax purposes”

and “values connected with the taxing state.” Quill, 504 U.S. at 

306 (internal quotation marks omitted).

i

We demand “minimum connections” because a taxation 

regime that does not rest on “minimum connections” lacks 

democratic legitimacy. See Quill, 504 U.S. at 312 (“[T]he due 

process nexus analysis requires that we ask whether an 

individual’s connections with a State are substantial enough to 

legitimate the State’s exercise of power over him.”). The 

government would have us ignore the role of state and local 

governments in subjecting Gordon to their own tax laws, but it 

seems to me that the powers the states wield as a result of the 

PACT Act implicate the democratic principles that undergird 

the Due Process Clause.8

 

of Congress’s novel exercise of its commerce power); Regents of 

Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 299 (1978) (Powell, J.) (“In 

expounding the Constitution, the Court’s role is to discern principles 

sufficiently absolute to give them roots throughout the community 

and continuity over significant periods of time, and to lift them 

above the level of the pragmatic political judgments of a particular 

time and place.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

8 By examining these principles, I am emphatically not

announcing a new test. See post, at 1 (Sentelle, J., concurring). I am 

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20

The demand that taxation regimes possess democratic 

legitimacy finds deep roots in the founding of our republic. See 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 15 (U.S. 1776) 

(“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction 

foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; 

giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: . . . 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent . . . .”); 

EDMUND BURKE, THE POLITICAL TRACTS AND SPEECHES OF 

EDMUND BURKE, ESQ. 100 (1777) (“[I]n prudence we ought 

not to be quite so ready with our taxes, until we can secure the 

desired representation in parliament.”); Speech of Lord 

Camden on the American Declaratory Bill (1766), in 16 THE

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE EARLIEST 

PERIOD TO THE YEAR 1803 (T. Hansard ed., 1813) (“[T]he 

British Parliament have no right to tax the 

Americans. . . . [T]axation and representation are inseparable –

this position is founded on the laws of nature; . . . for whatever 

is a man’s own, is absolutely his own; no man has a right to 

take it from him without his consent, either expressed by 

himself or representative . . . .”); see also Pollack v. Farmers’ 

Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 556 (1895) (“The men who 

framed and adopted [the Constitution] had just emerged from 

the struggle for independence whose rallying cry had been that 

‘taxation and representation go together.’ . . . The principle 

was that the consent to those who were expected to pay it was 

essential to the validity of any tax.”); Slaughter-House Cases, 

83 U.S. 36, 115 (1873) (Bradley, J., dissenting) (“A violation 

 

only looking for guidance about how to apply the old one. Our 

precedent tells us to look for minimum contacts. But with which 

sovereign? Never before have there been two potential answers to 

this question, as there are in this case. As I have weighed the 

answers, it has been helpful to me to understand why we require 

minimum contacts to begin with.

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21

of . . . the principle that recognizes the property of the people 

as their own, and which, therefore, regards all taxes for the 

support of government as gifts of the people through their 

representatives, and regards taxation without representation as 

subversive of free government, was the origin of our own 

revolution.”). Our due process jurisprudence ensures 

democratic legitimacy by relying on the mechanism of “fair 

warning.” See Quill, 504 U.S. at 312. In Quill, the Supreme 

Court reasoned that “if a foreign corporation purposefully 

avails itself of the benefits of an economic market in the forum 

State” and “engage[s] in continuous and widespread 

solicitation of business within a State,” then it “clearly has ‘fair 

warning that [its] activity may subject [it] to the jurisdiction of 

a foreign sovereign.’” Id. at 307-08 (quoting Shaffer v. Heitner, 

433 U.S. 186, 218 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring) (alterations 

in original)). Fairly warned that a state might tax them, persons 

can participate, at least through petitioning and speech, in the 

political process that decides whether it will. Cf. Borough of 

Duryea v. Guarnieri, __ U.S. __, 131 S. Ct. 2488, 2499-500 

(2011) (“Petitions allow[] participation in democratic 

governance even by groups excluded from the franchise.”

(citation omitted)). Fairly warned that a state will tax certain 

conduct, the decision to engage in that conduct is tantamount to

consent to be taxed. Cf. Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 

310, 318 (1945) (“[S]ome of the decisions holding the 

corporation amenable to suit have been supported by resort to 

the legal fiction that it has given its consent to service and suit, 

consent being implied from its presence in the state through the 

acts of its authorized agents.” (citations omitted)). 

These principles give strength to Gordon’s argument that 

even a federal duty to comply with state and local tax laws may 

transgress due process limits on the taxation power. True 

enough, Gordon possesses minimum contacts with the federal 

government that will enforce his duty, but should we not also 

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22

demand that he possess minimum contacts with the state and 

local governments that will define his duty? The Framers saw 

the legislative process – which defines rather than enforces our 

duties – as the bulwark against oppressive taxation. 9 THE 

FEDERALIST NO. 35 (Alexander Hamilton) (“Is it not natural 

that a man who is a candidate for the favor of the 

people, . . . should be willing to allow them their proper degree 

of influence upon his conduct? This dependence, and the 

necessity of being bound himself . . . by the [taxes] to which he 

gives his assent, are the true, and they are the strong chords of 

sympathy between the representative and the constituent.”); 

THE FEDERALIST NO. 84 (Alexander Hamilton) (arguing that 

the people can rely on legislative accountability to ensure that 

legislatures do not exercise their taxing discretion to eliminate 

the freedom of the press). And the Supreme Court has long 

acknowledged the importance of this structural check. See 

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 428 (1819) 

(“The only security against the abuse of th[e] power [to tax], is 

found in the structure of the government itself. In imposing a 

tax the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is in general a 

sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive 

taxation.”); Int’l Harvester Co. v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Taxation, 

322 U.S. 435, 451 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting) 

(“Representation is the ordinary guaranty of fairness in 

taxation.”); Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U.S. 405, 415 (1938)

(“State taxation of national instrumentalities is subject to no 

[democratic] restraint, for the people outside the state have no 

 9 By focusing on enforcement alone, my dissenting colleague is 

missing an important piece of the picture. See post, at 2-3 

(Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). His preoccupation with the question of 

which government will hail Gordon into court obscures important 

distinctions between “the due process standards for adjudicative 

jurisdiction and those for legislative (or prescriptive) jurisdiction.” 

See Quill, 504 U.S. at 319-20 (Scalia, J., concurring).

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23

representatives who participate in the legislation; and in a real 

sense, as to them, the taxation is without representation.”). 

Without fair warning of which state and local legislatures will 

be constructing his tax burden, Gordon would lose a critical 

safeguard at the heart of democratic legitimacy. Gordon’s 

“minimum connection” with Congress affords him some 

security, to be sure, but it is not clear that his attenuated 

recourse to Congress to redress “erroneous or oppressive” 

taxes levied by state and local legislatures satisfies the Due 

Process Clause.

ii

Another “simple but controlling question” to test the 

lawfulness of an exercise of taxation power is “whether the 

state has given anything for which it can ask return.” See Nat’l 

Bellas Hess v. Dep’t of Revenue, 386 U.S. 753, 756 (1967)

(internal quotation marks omitted); see also Quill, 504 U.S. at 

306. Cf. New York ex rel. Cohn v. Graves, 300 U.S. 308, 313 

(1937) (“Enjoyment of the privileges of residence in the state 

and the attendant right to invoke the protection of its laws are 

inseparable from responsibility for sharing the costs of 

government.”). In order to protect this principle of just 

exchange, we uphold “the power of a state to impose liability 

on an out-of-state seller to collect a local use tax [when] the 

out-of-state seller was plainly accorded the protections and 

services of the taxing state.” Nat’l Bellas Hess, 386 U.S. at 

757. When minimum contacts with the state or locality are 

present, the taxed party receives “the benefits and protections 

of the laws of [the] state,” Int’l Shoe Co., 326 U.S. at 319, and 

there is no due process problem with the state or locality

extracting revenue from that party’s transactions. But when 

minimum contacts with that state or locality are lacking, the 

state or locality offers no services or protections to justify the 

tax it receives. Gordon may be correct that the due process 

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24

defects of this imbalanced exchange do not disappear simply 

because the federal government brokers it.

In light of these principles, the district court did not abuse 

its discretion by concluding that Gordon is likely to succeed on 

this first step of his merits argument. In so holding, we caution 

that we are not deciding as a matter of law which sovereign a 

court must look to in completing its minimum contacts 

analysis. That question is one of significant moment, touching 

core federalism concerns. J. McIntyre Mach., Ltd., 131 S. Ct. at 

2789. And as this discussion reveals, the PACT Act has been 

cast in a mold that has never been constitutionally tested. We 

are unwilling to resolve such an important and novel

constitutional question without the benefit of further factual 

development.

Before we may affirm the preliminary injunction, 

however, we must address the second constitutional question 

that informed the district court’s conclusion that Gordon is 

likely to succeed on the merits of his claim. 

2

Under Section 2a of the PACT Act, Gordon’s obligation to 

collect a given state or local tax attaches when he initiates a 

transaction within that jurisdiction. Gordon’s due process 

challenge presents the question whether a single sale is enough 

to establish minimum contacts with that jurisdiction. The 

government asserts it is, providing a constitutional basis for the 

Act even if Gordon is correct that the Due Process Clause 

demands minimum contacts with the state or local taxing 

authority. Appellants’ Br. 30-33. Once again, the question is a 

close one, deserving of further development at a trial on the 

merits, so we affirm and remand. See Red Earth, 657 F.3d at 

145 (affirming a preliminary injunction against Section 2a of 

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25

the PACT Act on this ground and remanding for a trial on the 

merits).

Due process jurisprudence on “minimum contacts” has 

evolved significantly over the past half-century. In National 

Bellas Hess v. Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court held 

that minimum contacts do not exist between a state and a seller

“whose only connection with customers in the State is by 

common carrier or the United States mail.” 386 U.S. at 758; 

see also Miller Bros. Co., 347 U.S. at 344-45. National Bellas 

Hess was commonly understood to require that the seller have 

some “physical presence” in the taxing state. Quill, 504 U.S. at 

306-07. Thirty years later, in Quill, the Supreme Court

overruled that holding. Id. at 308. Relying on “comparable” 

reasoning in cases concerning the personal jurisdiction of 

courts, the Court concluded that North Dakota’s imposition of 

a duty to collect a use tax on Quill did not violate the Due 

Process Clause, even though Quill’s only contacts with citizens 

of North Dakota occurred by means of mail or common carrier. 

Id. The court relied on the fact that Quill purposefully directed 

its activities at residents of North Dakota, that it had conducted 

a high volume of business with customers in that state, and that 

the use tax was “related to the benefits Quill receives from 

access to the state.” Id.

But “[t]he Supreme Court has never found ‘that a single 

isolated sale . . . is sufficient’” to establish minimum contacts. 

Red Earth, 657 F.3d at 145 (quoting J. McIntyre Mach., Ltd., 

131 S. Ct. at 2792 (Breyer, J., concurring)). While it may prove 

to be the case that, in the Internet age, a single sale establishes 

“minimum contacts” as a matter of law, this seems like

precisely the sort of difficult constitutional question on which 

our analysis would benefit from factual development. For 

example, how difficult is it for a delivery seller to identify and 

calculate applicable taxes at the point of sale? What sorts of 

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26

services do states provide to delivery sellers (e.g., a forum for 

collecting debts from buyers, trash disposal for shipping 

cartons)? Without this knowledge, we find no reason to upset 

the district court’s reasonable conclusion that Gordon has

demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of his due 

process challenge to the tax provisions of the PACT Act. We 

underscore that our analysis is preliminary; we make no final 

determination on the merits of Gordon’s due process 

challenge.

B

We likewise hold that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in determining where the public interest lies when it

concluded that “enforcement of a potentially unconstitutional 

law that would also have severe economic effects is not in the 

public interest.” Gordon, 826 F. Supp. 2d at 297.

Relying upon United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyer’s 

Coop., 532 U.S. 483, 497 (2001), the government argues that 

the court erred as a matter of law “by failing to give any 

deference to Congress’s assessment of where the public 

interest lies.” Appellants’ Br. 39. 10 In Oakland, the 

government invoked the Controlled Substances Act to enjoin 

the cooperative from distributing marijuana. Citing the “public 

interest,” the district court modified the injunction to permit 

distribution in cases of medical necessity. 532 U.S. at 495. The 

Supreme Court overturned the court of appeals decision 

affirming the modified injunction, holding that the district 

 10 The government also seeks support for this argument in Able 

v. United States, 44 F.3d 128, 131-32 (2d Cir. 1995). The 

government’s reliance on Able is misplaced. The cited holding 

relates not to the “public interest,” but to the “likelihood of success 

on the merits.” Id. at 130-31.

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court’s considerable discretion to fashion equitable relief is 

bounded when it comes to deciding whether the “public 

interest” favors an injunction. Id. at 497. The district court 

could not “‘ignore the judgment of Congress, deliberately 

expressed in legislation’” by considering “any and all factors 

that might relate to the public interest.” Id. (quoting Virginian

Ry. Co. v. Ry. Sys. Fed’n No. 40, Emps. Dep’t of the Am. Fed’n 

of Labor, 300 U.S. 515 (1937)). 

The district court did not transgress the limits on its 

discretion here. Oakland prohibits a district court from 

second-guessing Congress’s lawful prioritization of its policy 

goals. Id. For example, under the rationale of Oakland, it

would have been wrong for the district court to hold that the 

public interest in preserving tobacco industry jobs outweighs 

the public health harms attributable to underage smoking. Such 

a holding would interfere with Congress’s “delegated powers” 

to “decide[] the order of priorities.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted). But the district court here did not second-guess 

Congress’s policy priorities – only the lawfulness of 

Congress’s means of achieving those priorities. In doing so, the 

court acknowledged the obvious: enforcement of an 

unconstitutional law is always contrary to the public interest. 

See, e.g., Lamprecht v. FCC, 958 F.2d 382, 390 (D.C. Cir. 

1992); G & V Lounge v. Michigan Liquor Control Comm’n, 23 

F.3d 1071, 1079 (6th Cir. 1994); Llewlyn v. Oakland Cnty.

Prosecutor’s Office, 402 F. Supp. 1379, 1393 (E.D. Mich. 

1975) (“[I]t may be assumed that the Constitution is the 

ultimate expression of the public interest.”). The Constitution 

does not permit Congress to prioritize any policy goal over the 

Due Process Clause. 

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C

Finally, we hold that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion when it concluded that Gordon was likely to suffer 

irreparable harm and that the balance of the equities tips in his 

favor. 

Gordon argued that the PACT Act would cause him 

irreparable harm because it threatened the existence of his 

business and violated his constitutional rights. “[S]uits for 

declaratory and injunctive relief against the threatened 

invasion of a constitutional right do not ordinarily require 

proof of any injury other than the threatened constitutional 

deprivation itself.” Davis v. District of Columbia, 158 F.3d 

1342, 1346 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Thus, “[a]lthough a plaintiff 

seeking equitable relief must show a threat of substantial and 

immediate irreparable injury, a prospective violation of a 

constitutional right constitutes irreparable injury for these 

purposes.” Id. (internal citation omitted). The district court did 

not abuse its discretion by concluding that Gordon had

demonstrated such a threat: when he was in business, the Act 

required Gordon to pay what he alleges are unconstitutional 

taxes or else risk criminal and civil penalties. 

Similarly, the district court concluded that “a potential 

deprivation of [Gordon’s] constitutional right to due 

process . . . outweighs the possible injury to defendants from 

enjoining enforcement until the merits of Gordon’s claim can 

be determined.” Gordon, 826 F. Supp. 2d at 297. Although the 

preliminary injunction might temporarily frustrate the federal 

government’s interest in enforcing state and local tax laws, the 

district court permissibly gave greater weight to the possibility 

that Gordon could suffer an ongoing constitutional violation 

while this litigation proceeds. 

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Now that Gordon’s business has ceased operations, he 

arguably no longer faces the dilemma on which the district 

court based its finding of irreparable injury. Neither does the 

government face the prospect of watching Gordon’s cigarette 

sales go untaxed. As the administrator of the injunction, the 

district court is better placed than we are to judge its ongoing 

necessity. Our charge in a § 1292(a)(1) appeal is limited to 

determining whether the district court acted within its

discretion by issuing the preliminary injunction in the first 

instance. Finding no abuse of discretion, we decline the 

government’s invitation to vacate the injunction. In reaching 

that decision, we are sensitive to the gravity of enjoining an act 

of Congress, even temporarily. The government remains free 

to petition the district court for relief from the preliminary 

injunction in light of the changed circumstances. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 60(b) (empowering the district court to “relieve a party”

from an order).

III

Before we turn to the claims the district court dismissed, 

we must consider the government’s argument that the 

preliminary injunction is overbroad. The government argues

that the injunction, which bars it from enforcing the tax 

provisions against Gordon at all, should have prohibited it only 

from enforcing the provisions against Gordon’s sales into 

jurisdictions with which he lacks minimum contacts. We hold 

that the district court adequately fulfilled its duty to “maintain 

the act in so far as it is valid.” Red Earth, 657 F.3d at 145 

(quoting Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 684 

(1987)). By demanding that the injunction be narrower, the 

government asks the district court to put the cart before the 

horse. To accede to the government’s argument, the district 

court would not only have to define the much-disputed concept 

of “minimum contacts,” but would also have to engage in 

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30

significant fact-finding to determine where around the country

Gordon has established minimum contacts. See Marcia Gordon 

Second Decl. ¶ 13 (“There are several states in which we have 

made zero or very few sales. In addition, there are many local 

jurisdictions in which we have never made a sale.”). 

Preliminary injunction hearings are ill-suited for such fine 

tailoring.

More fundamentally, we are not convinced by the 

government’s premise: that Gordon may challenge the PACT 

Act only “as applied” against his sales into jurisdictions with 

which he lacks minimum contacts. The government points out 

that a court may find a statute to be invalid on its face only if a 

plaintiff has shown that the Act has no “plainly legitimate 

sweep.” Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State Repub. Party, 552 

U.S. 442, 449 (2008) (citation omitted); see also United States 

v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987) (holding that facial 

challenges will be sustained only if “no set of circumstances 

exist under which the Act would be valid”). The government 

argues that any facial challenge to the PACT Act must fail

because there is no dispute that the federal government may 

compel a delivery seller to collect taxes for at least those state 

and local governments with which it has minimum contacts. 

Thus, the Act has a “plainly legitimate sweep,” even if it 

sweeps too broadly. 

But when a statute erases the boundaries that define a 

sovereign’s jurisdiction, as the PACT Act does to the 

boundaries of state and local taxing jurisdictions, any 

legitimate application is pure happenstance. It is perhaps this 

consideration that has led the Supreme Court to sustain facial 

challenges to laws that omit constitutionally-required 

jurisdictional elements, even though all such laws necessarily 

have a “plainly legitimate sweep.” For example, in United 

States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down the Gun-Free 

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31

School Zones Act of 1990, a federal law that prohibited 

individuals from knowingly possessing firearms within school 

zones. 514 U.S. 549, 551 (1995). The text of the statute 

“contain[ed] no jurisdictional element which would ensure, 

through case-by-case inquiry, that the firearm possession in 

question affects interstate commerce.” Id. at 561; see also 

United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 613 (2000) (relying 

on Lopez to sustain a facial challenge to the Violence Against 

Women Act). Similarly, if Gordon’s due process analysis is 

correct, the PACT Act contains “no jurisdictional element 

which would ensure” that the taxes it imposes comport with the 

Due Process Clause. It permits state and local taxing powers to 

bleed over from legitimate objects of taxation to cover objects 

foreign to the state or local jurisdiction. Following the Supreme 

Court’s lead, we are not willing to hold – at the preliminary 

injunction stage – that Gordon is unable to maintain a facial 

challenge.

IV

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of 

Gordon’s remaining claims. See Schrader v. Holder, 704 F.3d 

980, 984 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

A

Gordon argues that Section 2a violates the Tenth 

Amendment by commandeering states to administer a federal 

taxation scheme.11 The district court properly dismissed this 

Tenth Amendment challenge for failure to state a claim for 

 11 Gordon has standing to bring a claim that he was injured by 

Congress’s “disregard of the federal structure of our Government,” 

as reflected in the Tenth Amendment. See Bond v. United States, __ 

U.S. __, 131 S. Ct. 2355, 2366-67 (2011).

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relief. As the government points out, the type of burden the 

PACT Act creates is different in kind from the burdens the

Supreme Court held to violate the Tenth Amendment in New 

York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Printz v. 

United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997). 

This is not a case in which “the Federal Government [is] 

compel[ling] the States to implement, by legislation or 

executive action, federal regulatory programs.” Printz, 521 

U.S. at 925. Instead of drafting states to enforce federal law, 

the PACT Act pledges the federal government to enforce state 

law. See 15 U.S.C. § 377 (imposing federal criminal penalties 

for violating the delivery sale provisions of the PACT Act). 

States may still craft their tax codes to accomplish their own 

policy goals. If a state wishes to increase tobacco consumption

or to promote its use among minors, it retains the discretion to 

do so.

In fact, the challenged provisions of the PACT Act do not 

direct the states to do anything. Any administrative burden that 

results is merely incidental to Congress’s lawful exercise of its 

power to regulate the private participants in interstate 

commerce. In New York, the Court left open the possibility that 

Congress could pursue permissible policy goals by directly 

regulating private parties rather than states. 505 U.S. at 159-60. 

That is what Congress has done here.

The affirmative burdens placed on the states in Printz and 

New York were unavoidable. By contrast, states may avoid any 

burdens imposed by the PACT Act – a distinction the Supreme 

Court has treated as constitutionally significant. In FERC v. 

Mississippi, for example, the Court rejected a Tenth 

Amendment challenge to a federal statute that called for states 

to consider federal standards in regulating public utilities. 456 

U.S. 742 (1982). The Court emphasized that “if a State has no 

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utilities commission, or simply stops regulating in the field, it 

need not even entertain the federal proposals.” Id. at 764; see 

also Hodel v. Va. Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass’n, Inc., 

452 U.S. 264, 288 (1981) (affirming a federal statute with 

similar reasoning). The Court in New York distinguished FERC 

v. Mississippi on these grounds, noting that there was nothing 

in the law at issue in FERC “directly compelling” the state to 

participate in the federal regulatory program. New York, 505 

U.S. at 161-62; see also Printz, 521 U.S. at 925-26. This case is 

much more like FERC than New York. If states wish to tax 

delivery sales of tobacco products, they may have to answer

the federal call to accept pre-paid taxes from out-of-state 

sellers. Still, they may avoid that federal mandate altogether by 

not taxing tobacco delivery sales. Congress may lawfully

present states with this Hobson’s choice because it has the 

power to prevent states from taxing interstate commerce 

altogether. See FERC, 456 U.S. at 759.

Additionally, the PACT Act does not blur the lines of 

political accountability as did the statute challenged in New 

York, 505 U.S. at 169. Here, states still freely set the tax rates 

for which they may be held accountable. And because the Act 

applies directly to the sellers, it is clear that Congress is the 

source of the new duty, not the states. See United States v. 

Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 654 n.21 (2000) (Souter, J., 

dissenting) (“Had Congress chosen . . . to proceed instead by 

regulating the States, rather than private individuals, this 

accountability would be far less plain.”). 

The PACT Act regulates individuals, not states; its only 

incidental effect on the states is to require them to collect 

additional tax revenue if they choose to join Congress in 

regulating interstate commerce in tobacco products. This sort 

of burden is constitutionally permissible.

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34

B

The district court also properly dismissed Gordon’s Fifth 

Amendment challenge to the PACT Act’s ban on shipping

tobacco products in the U.S. mail. Gordon argues that the ban 

deprives him of due process and the equal protection of the 

laws.

There is no dispute that the district court properly applied 

rational basis review to the mail ban. Accordingly, Gordon has 

a claim only if he can show that there is no “rational 

relationship between [the ban] and some legitimate 

governmental purpose.” Am. Bus. Ass’n v. Rogoff, 649 F.3d 

734, 742 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). This burden “to 

negative every conceivable basis which might support” the law

is especially difficult to meet. FCC v. Beach Commc’ns, Inc., 

508 U.S. 307, 315 (1993). Rational basis review “is not a 

license for courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of 

legislative choices.” Id. at 313. Courts must uphold legislation 

“[e]ven if the classification involved . . . is to some extent both 

underinclusive and overinclusive . . . .” Vance v. Bradley, 440 

U.S. 93, 108 (1979). In the ordinary case, “a law will be 

sustained if it can be said to advance a legitimate government 

interest, even if the law seems unwise or works to the 

disadvantage of a particular group, or if the rationale for it 

seems tenuous.” Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 632 (1996).

Gordon argues that this is no ordinary case because 

Congress has never before banned the shipment of a product 

that is legal in all fifty states and does not present a danger to 

the mail or mail carriers. Appellee’s Br. 47. Unprecedented 

laws, he asserts, are subject to more “careful” rational basis 

review under Romer v. Evans. Appellee’s Br. 50; see also 

Romer, 517 U.S. at 633 (discussing the unprecedented nature 

of the law under review). We need not decide whether Romer

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35

announced such a rule because the mail ban is not 

unprecedented. The government provides – and Gordon fails to 

distinguish – several examples of articles Congress has banned 

from the U.S. mail that are legal in all fifty states and do not 

present a danger to the mail or mail carriers. See, e.g., 39 

U.S.C. § 3002 (making vehicle master keys nonmailable); id.

§ 3002a (making locksmithing devices nonmailable). We

therefore examine this law as we examine any other law that 

does not infringe on a fundamental right or involve a suspect 

classification.

Although we are by no means restricted to the stated 

reasons for passing a law in our search for a “rational basis,” 

Beach Commc’ns, 508 U.S. at 315, we need look no further 

than the statute itself to discern three rational bases for the mail 

ban. As we observed in Gordon I, Section 1 of the Act reveals 

that it was “aimed primarily at combating three evils: tobacco 

sales to minors, [illicit] cigarette trafficking, and 

circumvention of state taxation requirements.” 632 F.3d at 723 

(citing Pub. L. No. 111-154, § 1(b)). Gordon does not dispute 

that these purposes are “legitimate governmental purposes,” 

but argues that the mail ban fails to advance them because it is

duplicative, overinclusive in some ways, and underinclusive in 

others. His arguments ask us to engage in a higher level of 

scrutiny than rational basis review allows.

For example, Gordon argues that Congress could have 

accomplished the goal of preventing illicit cigarette trafficking 

by enhancing penalties for violations of existing laws, rather 

than broadly excluding both licit and illicit tobacco deliveries 

from the mail. Once again, the legislative record reveals a 

rational basis for choosing one path over the other: delivery 

sellers “have been very successful at eluding traditional 

enforcement measures, by making their cigarette and 

smokeless tobacco deliveries by mail.” H.R. Rep. No. 111-117, 

USCA Case #12-5051 Document #1444043 Filed: 06/28/2013 Page 35 of 43
36

at 19 (2009). Our standard of review does not permit us to 

second-guess the wisdom of that choice. 

With respect to sales to minors, Gordon argues that the 

mail ban is duplicative because Congress promulgated age 

verification requirements in 15 U.S.C. § 376a(b)(4). Yet his 

next argument betrays an awareness that age verification 

requirements are only partially effective. He claims that the 

mail ban is underinclusive because it does not cover underage 

sales that occur at brick and mortar stores, which are also 

subject to age verification requirements. See Appellee’s Br. 54 

n.14 (citing Tobacco Free Kids Org., Where Do Youth Smokers 

Get Their Cigarettes?, http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/resear

ch/factsheets/pdf/0073.pdf (last accessed June 7, 2013)). But 

Congress “must be allowed leeway to approach a perceived 

problem incrementally.” Beach Commc’ns, 508 U.S. at 316.

Congress’s judgment that the existing enforcement 

mechanisms must be supplemented by the partial solution of a 

mail ban is entirely rational.

Finally, Gordon argues that the mail ban is duplicative 

because the tax provisions already effectively prevent 

circumvention of state taxes. But as we note above, Congress 

concluded that the mail enables determined sellers to evade the 

law – including, presumably, the PACT Act’s command that 

sellers pay state and local taxes in advance of the sale. It is 

entirely rational for Congress to buttress other legal provisions 

by closing a popular channel for noncompliant commerce. 

Because Gordon has not met his high burden “to negative 

every conceivable basis” for the Act, Beach Commc’ns, 508 

U.S at 315, the district court was correct to dismiss Gordon’s 

claim. And because the only challenge to the mail ban was 

properly dismissed, we need not decide whether the district 

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37

court should have granted a preliminary injunction against the 

mail ban.

V

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s decision is 

affirmed and the case is remanded for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment 

in part and dissenting in part: The majority opinion holds 

that key tax-related provisions of the Prevent All Cigarette 

Trafficking Act may be unconstitutional under the Due 

Process Clause’s minimum contacts principle. The majority 

opinion therefore affirms the District Court’s preliminary

injunction barring the Federal Government from enforcing

those provisions of the statute. I respectfully disagree. To 

obtain a preliminary injunction, a plaintiff must show, among 

other things, a likelihood of success on the merits. In my 

view, Gordon’s Due Process Clause claim lacks merit. I 

would therefore vacate the preliminary injunction entered by 

the District Court. 

In 2010, Congress passed and President Obama signed 

the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act. That law requires 

cigarette sellers to comply with various state tax laws. The 

law was prompted by Congress’s finding that Internet 

cigarette sellers were not complying with federal, state, and 

local tax laws, resulting in billions of dollars in lost tax 

revenue each year. Importantly for present purposes, 

violations of the Act are subject to federal criminal 

prosecution or federal civil suit. In such federal lawsuits, the

United States is the relevant sovereign and jurisdiction. As I 

will explain, when the Federal Government (not a State)

regulates a U.S. seller such as Gordon, there is no Due 

Process Clause minimum contacts issue. 

To begin, it is well-settled that Congress may enact 

federal laws that require sellers of a product to comply with 

certain state laws. So long as the federal law is otherwise 

justified under the Constitution – for example, as a Commerce 

Clause regulation of commercial activity – the fact that the 

federal law piggy-backs on state law in this fashion is 

irrelevant. The Supreme Court has long upheld federal laws 

of that sort. See Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois 

Central Railroad Co., 299 U.S. 334 (1937); Clark Distilling 

USCA Case #12-5051 Document #1444043 Filed: 06/28/2013 Page 38 of 43
2

Co. v. Western Maryland Railway Co., 242 U.S. 311 (1917). 

A number of federal laws follow that model. See, e.g., 7 

U.S.C. §§ 1571, 1573 (no transfer of agricultural seeds into a 

State in violation of state law); 16 U.S.C. § 3372(a)(2) (no 

transfer of wildlife taken in violation of any state law); 18 

U.S.C. §§ 842(c) (no transfer of explosives into a State where 

they are illegal under state law); 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(2) (no 

transfer of firearms into a State where they are illegal under 

state law); 21 U.S.C. § 831(b) (online pharmacies must 

comply with the law of any State in which they do business or 

offer to do business); 31 U.S.C. § 5362(10)(A) (no online bets 

can be accepted where the bet is illegal in the State in which it 

is made); see also United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 

U.S. 715, 728 (1979) (“state law may be incorporated as the 

federal rule of decision”); Board of County Commissioners of 

the County of Jackson, Kansas v. United States, 308 U.S. 343, 

351-52 (1939) (“the state law has been absorbed, as it were, 

as the governing federal rule not because state law was the 

source of the right but because recognition of state interests 

was not deemed inconsistent with federal policy”); Henry M. 

Hart, Jr., The Relations Between State and Federal Law, 54 

COLUM. L. REV. 489, 498 (1954) (“Congress rarely enacts a 

complete and self-sufficient body of federal law. The federal 

statutes are full of references, both explicit and implicit, to the 

law of some state.”) (footnote omitted). 

There is no dispute here that the relevant provisions of 

the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act are valid under the 

Commerce Clause. The question concerns the law’s 

compliance with the minimum contacts principle of the Due 

Process Clause.

When Congress enacts a federal law of this kind and 

renders violators of that law subject to federal criminal 

prosecution or federal civil suit, the law does not violate the 

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3

minimum contacts principle of the Due Process Clause. The 

reason is quite simple: In such federal-law cases, the relevant 

sovereign and jurisdiction is the United States, not one of the

individual States. There is no Due Process minimum contacts 

issue raised by a federal-law suit against a seller located in the 

United States. That was the conclusion reached by a threejudge District Court in this Circuit when it rejected a similar 

Due Process Clause minimum contacts challenge to the 

Jenkins Act. That Act required cigarette shippers to report 

out-of-state sales to the buyer’s state tobacco administrator. 

The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the Court’s decision.

See Consumer Mail Order Association of America v. 

McGrath, 94 F. Supp. 705, 712 (D.D.C. 1950), aff’d, 340 U.S. 

925 (1951). I would reach the same conclusion here. See 

Musser’s Inc. v. United States, 2011 WL 4467784, at *5 (E.D. 

Pa. 2011) (denying preliminary injunction in Due Process 

Clause challenge to Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act).

To be sure, a seller like Gordon may raise a Due Process 

Clause minimum contacts objection in any state-law

proceeding. See Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 

(1992). But the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act does 

not negate a seller’s ability to raise a Due Process Clause 

minimum contacts objection in state-law cases.

In my view, therefore, Gordon’s Due Process Clause

claim is entirely without merit.

1

 To grant a preliminary 

injunction, however, a District Court must find a likelihood of 

success on the merits, among other things. See Winter v. 

Natural Resources Defense Council, 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008)

 1 The alternative Tenth Amendment argument advanced by 

Gordon in support of the preliminary injunction is likewise without 

merit, as the majority opinion explains and the District Court also 

concluded.

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4

(“A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish 

that he is likely to succeed on the merits . . . .”); Munaf v. 

Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 690 (2008) (“a party seeking a 

preliminary injunction must demonstrate, among other things, 

a likelihood of success on the merits”) (internal quotation 

marks omitted); Davis v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 

571 F.3d 1288, 1296 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Kavanaugh, J., 

concurring) (“In light of the Supreme Court’s recent 

decisions, I tend to agree . . . that the old sliding-scale 

approach to preliminary injunctions – under which a very 

strong likelihood of success could make up for a failure to 

show a likelihood of irreparable harm, or vice versa – is no 

longer controlling, or even viable. It appears that a party 

moving for a preliminary injunction must meet four 

independent requirements.”) (citation and internal quotation 

marks omitted); cf. Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 438 (2009) 

(Kennedy, J., concurring) (“When considering success on the 

merits and irreparable harm, courts cannot dispense with the 

required showing of one simply because there is a strong 

likelihood of the other.”). 

When, as here, a District Court incorrectly finds a 

likelihood of success on the merits, that legal error constitutes 

an abuse of discretion, and we must vacate the preliminary 

injunction. See Kiyemba v. Obama, 561 F.3d 509, 513 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009) (“If the moving party can show no likelihood of 

success on the merits, then preliminary relief is obviously 

improper and the appellant is entitled to reversal of the order 

as a matter of law.”); Air Line Pilots Association International 

v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 863 F.2d 891, 894 (D.C. Cir. 1988) 

(“We reverse the district court and hold that it should not have 

granted the motions for a preliminary injunction because the 

unions did not show a substantial likelihood of success on the 

merits.”); see generally So v. Suchanek, 670 F.3d 1304, 1310 

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (“A district court by definition abuses its 

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5

discretion when it makes an error of law.”) (internal quotation 

marks omitted).2

Because Gordon’s Due Process Clause claim is meritless,

I would vacate the District Court’s preliminary injunction

against enforcement of the tax-related provisions of the Act. 

As to Gordon’s cross-appeal challenging the District Court’s 

denial of a preliminary injunction to enjoin enforcement of 

the Act’s mailing ban on Fifth Amendment grounds, I would 

affirm the District Court because Gordon has not shown a 

likelihood of success on the merits of that claim, for reasons 

the majority opinion explains. 

 2 In certain First Amendment cases, the Supreme Court has 

said that a court of appeals may affirm a District Court’s 

preliminary injunction so long as the plaintiff has presented a 

“close” question on the merits. See Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 

656, 664-65 (2004). But the “close” question standard is not the 

usual rule for preliminary injunctions or for appellate review of 

preliminary injunctions. And even if a close question were enough, 

Gordon has not presented a close question here.

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SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring in part and

concurring in the judgment: I reluctantly concur in the result

announced in Judge Griffith’s opinion. While this case may not

be moot, it is not entirely clear what it is the parties are still

litigating about, and I hope that the district court re-examines the

mootness question with the benefit of a more full record. 

I do not join fully in Judge Griffith’s opinion because I

think it opines on matters far beyond the issues before the court,

and I do not wish to elevate those opinions to circuit law. 

First, footnote 1 of Judge Griffith’s opinion indulges, I think

quite gratuitously, in a discussion of the effect of the so-called

“Dormant Commerce Clause.” So far as I can tell, no party in

this case relies upon the Dormant Commerce Clause, the

Dormant Commerce Clause is not relied upon in the briefs, the

Dormant Commerce Clause has nothing to do with the result,

and this case has nothing to do with the Dormant Commerce

Clause. 

Further, I cannot support Judge Griffith’s opinion in its test

of “democratic legitimacy” for the minimum contacts necessary

to provide due process for taxation. Griffith op. at 19 21. The

search for democratic underpinnings for constitutional

provisions may be academically interesting, but I find no case in

which this court, the Supreme Court, or any other federal court

has undertaken that search before affirming the legitimacy of a

tax. Because Judge Griffith’s opinion supplies sufficient indicia

of minimum contacts without relying on this novel approach, I

join the result, indeed I join most of the opinion, but I cannot

fully join the elevation to circuit law of a new test for minimum

contacts, or of the discussion of the attributes of the “Dormant

Commerce Clause.”

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