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Page Number: 27.0

10 

UNITED STATES v. TEXAS 

 GORSUCH, J., concurring
GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

course,  the  district  court  cited  §706(2)  of  the  APA.    That 
provision does not say anything about “vacating” agency ac-
tion (“wholesale” or otherwise).  Instead, it authorizes a re-
viewing court to “set aside” agency action.  Still, from those 
two words alone, the district court thought the power to nul-
lify the Guidelines with respect to anyone anywhere surely 
follows.  See 606 F. Supp. 3d, at 498–500. 

Color  me  skeptical.    If  the  Congress  that  unanimously
passed the APA in 1946 meant to overthrow the “bedrock
practice of case-by-case judgments with respect to the par-
ties in each case” and vest courts with a “new and far-reach-
ing” remedial power, it surely chose an obscure way to do it. 
Arizona  v.  Biden,  40  F. 4th  375,  396  (CA6  2022)  (Sutton,
C. J., concurring).  At the very least, it is worth a closer look. 

B 
Begin  with  the  words  “set  aside”  in  isolation.  If  they
might suggest to some a power to “vacate” agency action in 
the  sense  of  rendering  it  null  and  void,  just  as  naturally 
they  might  mean  something  else  altogether.    They  might
simply describe what a court usually does when it finds a 
federal  or  state  statute  unconstitutional,  or  a  state  law 
preempted by a federal one.  Routinely, a court will disre-
gard  offensive  provisions  like  these  and  proceed  to  decide
the parties’ dispute without respect to them.  In Dennis v. 
United  States,  341  U. S.  494  (1951),  for  example,  Justice 
Frankfurter observed that “[w]e are to set aside the judg-
ment of those whose duty it is to legislate only if ” the Con-
stitution requires it.  Id., at 525 (concurring opinion).  Jus-
tice Frankfurter hardly meant to suggest the Court had the
power to erase statutes from the books.  See id., at 525–526. 
Instead,  he  used  the  phrase  to  mean  that  a  court  should 
disregard—refuse to apply—an unconstitutional law.  It is 
a usage that was common at the time of the APA’s adoption
and  that  remains  so  today.    See  Webster’s  New  Interna-
tional Dictionary 2291 (2d ed. 1954) (defining “set aside” as