Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

II 
NetChoice  chose  to  litigate  these  cases  as  facial  chal-
lenges, and that decision comes at a cost.  For a host of good 
reasons, courts usually handle constitutional claims case by 
case, not en masse.  See Washington State Grange v. Wash-
ington  State  Republican  Party,  552  U. S.  442,  450–451 
(2008).  “Claims  of  facial  invalidity  often  rest  on  specula-
tion” about the law’s coverage and its future enforcement. 
Id., at 450.  And “facial challenges threaten to short circuit
the  democratic  process”  by  preventing  duly  enacted  laws 
from being implemented in constitutional ways.  Id., at 451. 
This  Court  has  therefore  made  facial  challenges  hard  to 
win. 

That is true even when a facial suit is based on the First 
Amendment, although then a different standard applies.  In 
other cases, a plaintiff cannot succeed on a facial challenge
unless he “establish[es] that no set of circumstances exists 
under which the [law] would be valid,” or he shows that the 
law lacks a “plainly legitimate sweep.”  United States v. Sa-
lerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987); Washington State Grange, 
552 U. S., at 449.  In First Amendment cases, however, this 
Court has lowered that very high bar.  To “provide[ ] breath-
ing room for free expression,” we have substituted a less de-
manding though still rigorous standard.   United States v. 
Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 769 (2023).  The question is whether 
“a substantial number of [the law’s] applications are uncon-
stitutional, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legiti-
mate  sweep.”  Americans  for  Prosperity  Foundation  v. 
Bonta, 594 U. S. 595, 615 (2021); see Hansen, 599 U. S., at 
770 (likewise asking whether the law “prohibits a substan-
tial amount of protected speech relative to its plainly legit-
imate sweep”).  So in this singular context, even a law with
“a plainly legitimate sweep” may be struck down in its en-
tirety.  But that is so only if the law’s unconstitutional ap-
plications substantially outweigh its constitutional ones.

So far in these cases, no one has paid much attention to