Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

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MURPHY v. NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

514  U. S.  549,  587–601  (1995)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring)
(documenting  why  the  Commerce  Clause  does  not  permit
Congress  to  regulate  purely  local  activities  that  have  a
substantial  effect  on  interstate  commerce).    But  even 
assuming  the  Commerce  Clause  allows  Congress  to  pro-
hibit  intrastate  sports  gambling  “directly,”  it  “does  not 
authorize Congress to regulate state governments’ regula-
tion  of  interstate  commerce.”    New  York  v.  United  States, 
505  U. S.  144,  166  (1992).    The  Necessary  and  Proper 
Clause does not give Congress this power either, as a law 
is  not  “proper”  if  it  “subvert[s]  basic  principles  of  federal-
ism and dual sovereignty.”  Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. 1, 
65  (2005)  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting).  Commandeering  the
States,  as  PASPA  does,  subverts  those  principles.    See 
Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898, 923–924 (1997). 

Because  PASPA  is  at  least  partially  unconstitutional,
our precedents instruct us to determine “which portions of 
the  . . .  statute  we  must  sever  and  excise.”    United  States 
v.  Booker,  543  U. S.  220,  258  (2005)  (emphasis  deleted).
The  Court  must  make  this  severability  determination  by 
asking  a  counterfactual  question:  “ ‘Would  Congress  still 
have  passed’  the  valid  sections  ‘had  it  known’  about  the 
constitutional  invalidity  of  the  other  portions  of  the  stat-
ute?”  Id., at 246 (quoting Denver Area Ed. Telecommuni-
cations Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U. S. 727, 767 (1996) 
(plurality  opinion)).    I  join  the  Court’s  opinion  because  it
gives the best answer it can to this question, and no party
has  asked  us  to  apply  a  different  test.    But  in  a  future 
case,  we  should  take  another  look  at  our  severability
precedents.

Those precedents appear to be in tension with traditional
limits  on  judicial  authority.    Early  American  courts  did
not  have  a  severability  doctrine.    See  Walsh,  Partial  Un-
constitutionality,  85  N. Y. U.  L. Rev.  738,  769  (2010) 
(Walsh).  They  recognized  that  the  judicial  power  is,  fun-
damentally,  the  power  to  render  judgments  in  individual