Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-840_6jfm.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

22 

CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

they have standing based on these reporting obligations in 
their brief opposing the petition filed by California and the
other parties that intervened to defend the ACA, see Brief 
in Opposition 17, and in their merits brief, see Brief for Re-
spondent/Cross-Petitioner States 20–22.  They specifically
identified  the  consequences  of  noncompliance  to  which 
these injuries are traceable, id., at 22 (“Employers can be
sanctioned by the IRS for failing to submit adequate infor-
mation. . . . In other words, state respondents are compelled 
under  threat  of  government  sanction  to  produce  [the] 
forms”).  And they argued that these obligations are not en-
forceable because they are inseverable from the individual
mandate,  id.,  at  36–46;  see  also  id.,  at  26–27  (discussing 
Alaska Airlines, 480 U. S. 678). 

For these reasons, it is clear that the States did not forfeit 

the arguments discussed in this dissent.9 

* 

* 

* 

I would hold that the States have demonstrated standing 
to  seek  relief  from  the  ACA  provisions  that  burden  them 
and  that  they  claim  are  inseparable  from  the  individual
mandate. 

III 
Because  the  state  plaintiffs  have  standing,  I  proceed  to
consider the merits of this lawsuit.  That requires assessing
whether the individual mandate is unlawful and whether it 
—————— 

9 If the effect of the Court’s decision is dismissal of this action for lack 
of  Article  III  jurisdiction,  the  States  may  file  a  new  action.  See  18A 
C.  Wright  &  A.  Miller,  Federal  Practice  and  Procedure  §4436  (3d  ed.
2020) (“The basic rule that dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdic-
tion  does  not  preclude  a  second  action  . . .  is  well  settled”);  Hughes  v. 
United States, 4 Wall. 232, 237 (1866) (“If the first suit was dismissed for 
. . . want of jurisdiction . . . the judgment rendered will prove no bar to 
another suit”); Lopez v. Pompeo, 923 F. 3d 444, 447 (CA5 2019).  And in 
any event, many other parties will have standing to bring such a claim
based on a variety of the ACA’s substantive provisions that are arguably
inseverable from the mandate.  Our Affordable Care Act epic may go on.