Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-631_2d93.pdf
Page Number: 16

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

13 

Opinion of KAVANAUGH, J. 

have carried some force back when courts paid less atten-
tion  to  statutory  text  as  the  definitive  expression  of  Con-
gress’s will.  But courts today zero in on the precise statu-
tory text and, as a result, courts hew closely to the text of 
severability or nonseverability clauses.  See Seila Law LLC 
v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ante, at 33 (plu-
rality opinion); cf. Milner v. Department of Navy, 562 U. S. 
562, 569–573 (2011).6 

Of course, when enacting a law, Congress often does not 
include  either  a  severability  clause  or  a  nonseverability 
clause. 

In those cases, it is sometimes said that courts applying 
severability doctrine should search for other indicia of con-
gressional intent.  For example, some of the Court’s cases 
declare that courts should sever the offending provision un-
less  “the  statute  created  in  its  absence  is  legislation  that
Congress  would  not  have  enacted.”    Alaska  Airlines,  480 
U. S., at 685.  But experience shows that this formulation 
often  leads  to  an  analytical  dead  end.    That  is  because 
courts are not well equipped to imaginatively reconstruct a 
prior  Congress’s  hypothetical  intent.    In  other  words,  ab-
sent a severability or nonseverability clause, a court often 
cannot really know what the two Houses of Congress and 
the President from the time of original enactment of a law 
would have wanted if one provision of a law were later de-
clared unconstitutional. 

The  Court’s  cases  have  instead  developed  a  strong  pre-

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6 When Congress enacts a law with a severability clause and later adds
new  provisions  to  that  statute,  the  severability  clause  applies  to  those 
new  provisions  to  the  extent  dictated  by  the  text  of  the  severability
clause.  Likewise, when Congress has not included a severability clause 
in  initial  legislation,  Congress  can  subsequently  enact  a  severability
clause that applies to the existing statute to the extent dictated by the 
text of the later-added severability clause.  In both scenarios, the text of 
the severability clause remains central to the severability inquiry.