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16 

BARR v. AMERICAN ASSN. OF POLITICAL  
CONSULTANTS, INC. 
Opinion of KAVANAUGH, J. 

does not wag the dog (the rest of the codified statute or the
Act as passed by Congress).  Constitutional litigation is not
a game of gotcha against Congress, where litigants can ride
a discrete constitutional flaw in a statute to take down the 
whole,  otherwise  constitutional  statute.    If  the  rule  were 
otherwise, the entire Judiciary Act of 1789 would be invalid 
as a consequence of Marbury v. Madison.8 

Before severing a provision and leaving the remainder of 
a law intact, the Court must determine that the remainder 
of the statute is “capable of functioning independently” and 

—————— 

8 The term “invalidate” is a common judicial shorthand when the Court
holds that a particular provision is unlawful and therefore may not be 
enforced against a plaintiff.  To be clear, however, when it “invalidates” 
a law as unconstitutional, the Court of course does not formally repeal 
the law from the U. S. Code or the Statutes at Large.  Instead, in Chief 
Justice Marshall’s words, the Court recognizes that the Constitution is a
“superior,  paramount  law,”  and  that  “a  legislative  act  contrary  to  the 
constitution is not law” at all.  Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 
(1803).  The Court’s authority on this front “amounts to little more than 
the negative power to disregard an unconstitutional enactment.”  Mas-
sachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923).

JUSTICE THOMAS’s  thoughtful  approach  to  severability  as  outlined  in 
Murphy  v.  National  Collegiate  Athletic  Assn.,  584  U. S.  ___,  ___–___ 
(2018) (slip op., at 2–6), and Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Pro-
tection Bureau, ante, at 14–24, (joined by JUSTICE GORSUCH in the latter)
would  simply  enjoin  enforcement  of  a  law  as  applied  to  the  particular
plaintiffs  in  a  case.    Under  either  the  Court’s  approach  or  JUSTICE 
THOMAS’s approach, an offending provision formally remains on the stat-
ute books (at least unless Congress also formally repeals it).  Under ei-
ther approach, the formal remedy afforded to the plaintiff is an injunc-
tion,  declaration,  or  damages.    One  difference  between  the  two 
approaches is this: Under the Court’s approach, a provision is declared
invalid and cannot be lawfully enforced against others.  Under JUSTICE 
THOMAS’s  approach,  the  Court’s  ruling  that  a  provision  cannot  be  en-
forced against the plaintiff, plus executive respect in its enforcement pol-
icies for controlling decisional law, plus vertical and horizontal stare de-
cisis in the courts, will mean that the provision will not and cannot be 
lawfully enforced against others.  The Court and JUSTICE THOMAS take 
different analytical paths, but in many cases, the different paths lead to
the same place.