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MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

authority  to  resolve  private  disputes  between  particular
parties, rather than matters affecting the general public.” 
Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).  They considered
judges “of all men the most unfit to have a veto on laws be-
fore  their  enactment.” 
Ibid.  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).  Therefore,  they  refused  to  enlist  judges  in  the
business of reviewing statutes other than “as an issue for 
decision in a concrete case or controversy.”3  Ibid. 

For  more  than  a  century  following  the  founding,  the
Court  generally  adhered  to  the  original  understanding  of
the narrow scope of judicial review.  When the Court first 
discussed the concept of judicial review in Marbury v. Mad-
ison,  it  made  clear  that  such  review  is  limited  to  what  is 
necessary for resolving “a particular cas[e]” before a court.
1 Cranch, at 177; see also supra, at 5–6.  And, in case after 
case that followed Marbury, the Court reiterated that fed-
eral  courts  have  no  authority  to  reach  beyond  the  parties 
before them to facially invalidate a statute.4 
—————— 

3 “The later history of the New York Council of Revision demonstrates
the wisdom of the Framers’ decision.”  United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 
762, 790 (2023) (THOMAS, J., concurring).  The Council’s ability to lodge
objections proved significant: “Over the course of its existence, [the Coun-
cil] returned 169 bills to the legislature; the legislature, in turn, overrode 
only 51 of those vetoes and reenacted at least 26 bills with modifications.” 
Ibid.  The Council did not shy away from controversial or weighty mat-
ters either.  It vetoed, among other things, “a bill barring those convicted
of  adultery  from  remarrying”  and  a  bill  “declar[ing]  Loyalists  aliens.” 
Ibid.  In fact, the bill authorizing the Erie Canal’s construction—“one of
the  most  important  measures  in  the  Nation’s  history—survived  the 
Council’s review only because Chancellor James Kent changed his decid-
ing vote at the last minute, seemingly on a whim.”  Ibid.  Concerns over 
the Council’s “intrusive involvement in the legislative process” eventu-
ally led to its abolition in 1820.  Ibid. 

4 See,  e.g.,  Austin  v.  Aldermen,  7  Wall.  694,  699  (1869)  (holding  that 
the  Court  could  “only  consider  the  statute  in  connection  with  the  case
before” it and thus “our jurisdiction [wa]s at an end” once it “ascertained
that [the case] wrought no effect which the act forbids”); Liverpool, New 
York & Philadelphia S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 
33, 39 (1885) (the Court “has no jurisdiction to pronounce any statute . . .