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524US2

Unit: $U95

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NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Souter, J., dissenting

mind, a deﬁnitive answer comes in the succinctly accurate
remark of the proviso’s author, that the bill “add[s] to the
criteria of artistic excellence and artistic merit, a shell, a
screen, a viewpoint that must be constantly taken into ac-
count.”

Id., at 28631.3

II

In the face of such clear legislative purpose, so plainly ex-
pressed, the Court has its work cut out for it in seeking a

3 On the subject of legislative history and purpose, it is disturbing that
the Court upholds § 954(d) in part because the statute was drafted in hope
of avoiding constitutional objections, with some Members of Congress pro-
claiming its constitutionality on the congressional ﬂoor. See ante, at 581–
582. Like the Court, I assume that many Members of Congress believed
the bill to be constitutional.
Indeed, Members of Congress must take an
oath or afﬁrmation to support the Constitution, see U. S. Const., Art. VI,
cl. 3, and we should presume in every case that Congress believed its
statute to be consistent with the constitutional commands, see, e. g.,
United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 73 (1994) (“[W]e do
not impute to Congress an intent to pass legislation that is inconsistent
with the Constitution”); Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298, 319 (1957).
But courts cannot allow a legislature’s conclusory belief in constitutional-
ity, however sincere, to trump incontrovertible unconstitutionality, for “[i]t
is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say
what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803).

I recognize, as the court explains, ante, at 581, that the amendment
adding the decency and respect proviso was a bipartisan counterweight to
more severe alternatives, and that some Members of Congress may have
voted for it simply because it seemed the least among various evils. See,
e. g., 136 Cong. Rec. 28670 (1990) (“I am not happy with all aspects of the
Williams-Coleman substitute . . . .
It . . . contains language concerning
standards of decency that I ﬁnd very troubling. But I applaud Mr. Wil-
liams for his efforts in achieving this compromise under very difﬁcult
circumstances . . . .
I support the Williams-Coleman substitute”). Per-
haps the proviso was the mildest alternative available, but that simply
proves that the bipartisan push to reauthorize the NEA could succeed
only by including at least some viewpoint-based limitations. An apprecia-
tion of alternatives does not alter the fact that Congress passed decency
and respect restrictions, and it did so knowing and intending that those
restrictions would prevent future controversies stemming from the NEA’s
funding of inﬂammatory art projects, by declaring the inﬂammatory to be
disfavored for funding.