Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf
Page Number: 131

16 

JUNE MEDICAL SERVICES L.L.C. v. RUSSO 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

out to be replicable and predictable.  After all, “[l]iving un-
der a rule of law entails various suppositions, one of which
is that ‘all persons are entitled to be informed as to what
the State commands or forbids.’ ” Papachristou v. Jackson-
ville, 405 U. S. 156, 162 (1972) (quotation modified).  The 
existence  of  an  administrable  legal  test  even  lies  at  the
heart of what makes a case justiciable—as we have put it, 
federal courts may not entertain a question unless there are 
“ ‘judicially discoverable and manageable standards for re-
solving  it.’ ”    Rucho  v.  Common  Cause,  588  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2019)  (slip  op.,  at  11).    Nor  does  the  need  for  clear  rules 
dissipate as the stakes grow.  If anything, the judicial re-
sponsibility to avoid standardless decisionmaking is at its
apex in “ ‘the most heated partisan issues.’ ”  Id., at ___ (slip 
op., at 15).

Consider, for example, our precedents involving the First 
Amendment’s  right  to  free  speech.  In  an  effort  to  keep
judges from straying into the political fray, this Court has 
provided  a  detailed  roadmap:    A  court  must  determine 
whether  protected  speech  is  at  issue,  whether  the  re-
striction  is  content  based  or  content  neutral,  whether  the 
State’s asserted interest is compelling or substantial, and
whether the State might rely on less restrictive alternatives
to achieve the same goals.  At no point may a judge simply 
“ ‘balanc[e]’ the governmental interests . . . against the First 
Amendment  rights”  at  stake  because,  as  we  have  recog-
nized, it would be “inappropriate” for any court “to label one
as  being  more  important  or  more  substantial  than  the 
other.”  United  States  v.  Robel,  389  U. S.  258,  268,  n. 20 
(1967).  Any such raw balancing of competing social inter-
ests  must  be  left  to  the  legislature—“our  inquiry  is  more
circumscribed.”  Ibid.  Nor is this idea unique to the First 
Amendment context.  This Court has consistently rejected
the idea that courts may decide constitutional issues by re-
lying on “abstract opinions . . . of the justice of the decision”