Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-280_ba7d.pdf
Page Number: 26.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

23 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

The per curiam’s main argument appears to go as follows: 
Petitioners’  original  claim  was  a  challenge  to  New  York’s
old  rule;  this  claim  is  now  moot  due  to  the  repeal  of  that 
rule; and what the petitioners are now asserting is a new
claim, namely, that New York’s current rule is also uncon-
stitutional. 

This argument also misrepresents the nature of the claim
asserted  in  petitioners’  complaint.    What  petitioners
claimed in their complaint and still claim is that they are 
entitled  to  “unrestricted  access”  to  out-of-city  ranges  and
competitions.  App. 36.  The City’s replacement of one law 
denying unrestricted access with another that also denies 
that access did not change the nature of petitioners’ claim
or render it moot. 

Consider where acceptance of the argument adopted by
the per curiam leads.  Suppose that a city council, seeking 
to  suppress  a  local  paper’s  opposition  to  some  of  its  pro-
grams, adopts an ordinance prohibiting the publication of
any editorial without the approval of a city official.  Suppose
that  a  newspaper  challenges  the  constitutionality  of  this
rule, arguing that the First Amendment confers the unre-
stricted right to editorialize without prior approval.  If the 
council then repeals its ordinance and replaces it with a 
new  one  requiring  approval  only  if  the  editorial  concerns 
one particular city program, would that render the pending 
lawsuit moot and require the paper to commence a new one?
Or take this example.  A State enacts a law providing that
any woman wishing to obtain an abortion must submit cer-
tification from five doctors that the procedure is medically 
necessary.  After a woman sues, claiming that any require-
ment  of  physician  certification  is  unconstitutional,  the 

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“reasonably necessary” under the new rule.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 64–65.  But 
what that means is far from clear, and, at any rate, coffee breaks and the
like  are  just  illustrative  examples  of  potential  ways  in  which  the  new 
rule affords something less than unfettered access to gun ranges, compe-
titions, and second homes outside the City.  See supra, at 13.