Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 44.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

13 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

Indians are eligible because of their status as Indians” and 
required that it be included on “any list that designates fed-
erally recognized Indian tribes.”  H. R. 3662, 104th Cong., 
2d Sess., §121.  Of course, the ANCs before us currently are 
not recognized as tribes.  But all this history illustrates why 
it is hardly implausible to suppose that a rational Congress 
in  1975  might  have  wished  to  account  for  the  possibility 
that some of the Alaskan entities listed in ISDA might go 
on to win recognition. 
  The particular statutory structure Congress employed in 
ISDA was perfectly ordinary too.  Often Congress begins by 
listing a broad universe of potentially affected parties fol-
lowed by limiting principles.  Take this example from the 
CARES Act.  Congress afforded benefits to certain “ ‘unit[s] 
of  local  government,’ ”  and  defined  that  term  to  mean  “a 
county, municipality, town, township, village, parish, bor-
ough, or other unit of general government below the State 
level with a population that exceeds 500,000.”  42 U. S. C. 
§801(g)(2).    The  litigants  tell  us  no  parish  in  the  country 
today has a population exceeding half a million.  See Brief 
for Respondent Ute Tribe 31.  Suppose they’re right.  Is that 
any  basis  for  throwing  out  the  population  limitation  and 
suddenly including all parishes?  Of course not.  Once more, 
an opening list provides the full field of entities that may be 
eligible for relief and the concluding clause does the more 
precise  work  of  winnowing  it  down.    The  clauses  work  in 
harmony, not at cross-purposes.2 
—————— 

2

 To support its implausibility argument, the Court proposes a hypo-
thetical advertisement for “ ‘50% off any meat, vegetable, or seafood dish, 
including ceviche, which is cooked.’ ”  Ante, at 20.  The Court posits that 
any  reasonable  customer  would  expect  a  discount  even  on  uncooked 
ceviche.  It’s a colorful example, but one far afield from Indian law and 
the  technical  statutory  definitions  before  us.    Even  taken  on  its  own 
terms, too, the example is a bit underdone.  A reasonable customer might 
notice some tension in the advertisement, but there are many plausible 
takeaways.  Maybe the restaurant uses heat to cook its ceviche—many 
chefs  “lightly  poach  lobster,  shrimp,  octopus  or  mussels  before  using