Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-631_2d93.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

7 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

In an effort to mitigate at least some of these problems, 
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH suggests that the ban on government-
debt collection calls announced today might be applied only 
prospectively.  See ante, at 22, n. 13.  But prospective deci-
sionmaking has never been easy to square with the judicial 
power.  See, e.g., James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 
501 U. S. 529, 548–549 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) 
(judicial power is limited to “discerning what the law is, ra-
ther than decreeing . . . what it will tomorrow be”).  And a 
holding that shields only government-debt collection callers
from  past  liability  under  an  admittedly  unconstitutional 
law would wind up endorsing the very same kind of content 
discrimination we say we are seeking to eliminate.

Unable  to  solve  the  problems  associated  with  its  pre-
ferred severance remedy, today’s decision seeks at least to 
identify  “harm[s]”  associated  with  mine.  Cf.  ante,  at  24 
(opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.).  In particular, we are reminded 
that  granting  an  injunction  in  this  case  would  allow  the
plaintiffs’ (unpopular) speech, and that could induce others
to seek injunctions of their own, resulting in still more (un-
popular) speech.  But this “harm” is hardly comparable to
the  problems  associated  with  using  severability  doctrine: 
Having to tolerate unwanted speech imposes no cognizable 
constitutional  injury  on  anyone;  it  is  life  under  the  First 
Amendment,  which  is  almost  always  invoked  to  protect
speech some would rather not hear. 

* 
In the end, I agree that 47 U. S. C. §227(b)(1)(A)(iii) vio-
lates  the  First  Amendment,  though  not  for  the  reasons 
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH offers.  Nor am I able to support the
remedy  the  Court  endorses  today.   Respectfully,  if  this  is
what modern “severability doctrine” has become, it seems
to me all the more reason to reconsider our course.