Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 663

524US2

Unit: $U95

[09-06-00 18:40:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN

618

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Souter, J., dissenting

must establish that no set of circumstances exists under
which the Act would be valid.” United States v. Salerno,
481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987). But quite apart from any question
that might be raised about that statement as a general rule,11
it is beyond question, as the Court freely concedes, that it
can have no application here, it being well settled that the
general rule does not limit challenges brought under the
First Amendment’s speech clause.

There is an “exception to th[e] [capable-of-constitutional-
application] rule recognized in our jurisprudence [for] fa-
cial challenge[s] based upon First Amendment free-speech
grounds. We have applied to statutes restricting speech a
so-called ‘overbreadth’ doctrine, rendering such a statute in-
valid in all its applications (i. e., facially invalid) if it is invalid
in any of them.” Ada v. Guam Society of Obstetricians &
Gynecologists, 506 U. S. 1011, 1012 (1992) (Scalia, J., dis-
senting from denial of certiorari); 12 see, e. g., Reno v. Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844 (1997) (striking
down decency provision of Communications Decency Act as
facially overbroad); id., at 893–894 (O(cid:146)Connor, J., concurring
in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (declining to
apply the rule of Salerno because the plaintiffs’ claim arose
under the First Amendment); Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452
U. S., at 66 (“Because appellants’ claims are rooted in the
First Amendment, they are entitled to . . . raise an over-
breadth challenge”)
(internal quotation marks omitted);
Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 521–522 (1972).13 Thus,

11 Cf., e. g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S.
833, 895 (1992) (statute restricting abortion will be struck down if, “in a
large fraction of the cases in which [the statute] is relevant, it will operate
as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion”).

12 We have, however, recognized that “the overbreadth doctrine does
not apply to commercial speech.” Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman
Estates, Inc., 455 U. S. 489, 497 (1982).

13 Cf. United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987) (“The fact that
the Bail Reform Act might operate unconstitutionally under some conceiv-
able set of circumstances is insufﬁcient to render it wholly invalid, since