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Page Number: 28

4 

BOND v. UNITED STATES 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

Jones is also irrelevant.  To determine whether an owner-
occupied  private  residence  counted  as  a  “ ‘property  used
in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affect-
ing  interstate  or  foreign  commerce’ ”  under  the  federal 
arson statute, 529 U. S., at 850–851, our opinion examined 
not  the  federal-jurisdiction-expanding  consequences  of 
answering  yes  but  rather  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the 
words—and  answered  no,  id.,  at  855–857.    Then,  in  a 
separate part of the opinion, we observed that our reading
was  consistent  with  the  principle  that  we  should  adopt  a
construction that avoids “grave and doubtful constitutional
questions,”  id.,  at  857,  and,  quoting  Bass,  the  principle 
that  Congress  must  convey  its  purpose  clearly  before  its
laws  will  be  “ ‘deemed  to  have  significantly  changed  the 
federal-state balance,’ ” 529 U. S., at 858.  To say that the 
best  reading  of  the  text  conformed  to  those  principles  is 
not  to  say  that  those  principles  can  render  clear  text
ambiguous.3 

The latter is what the Court says today.  Inverting Bass 
and  Jones,  it  starts  with  the  federalism-related  conse-
quences  of  the  statute’s  meaning  and  reasons  backwards, 
holding that, if the statute has what the Court considers a
disruptive effect on the “federal-state balance” of criminal
jurisdiction, ante, at 14, that effect causes the text, even if 
clear  on  its  face,  to  be  ambiguous.  Just  ponder  what  the 
Court  says:  “[The  Act’s]  ambiguity  derives  from  the  im-
probably  broad  reach  of  the  key  statutory  definition  . . . 
the deeply serious consequences of adopting such a bound-
less  reading;  and  the  lack  of  any  apparent  need  to  do  so 
. . . .”  Ibid. (emphasis added).  Imagine what future courts 

—————— 

3 Other  cases  in  the  Bass  line  confirm  that  broad  text  “need  only  be
plain  to  anyone  reading  [it]”  in  order  to  be  given  its  obvious  meaning. 
Salinas  v.  United  States,  522  U. S.  52,  60  (1997)  (internal  quotation 
marks  omitted);  see  also  Pennsylvania  Dept.  of  Corrections  v.  Yeskey, 
524 U. S. 206, 209 (1998); cf. United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 562 
(1995).