Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-493_jgko.pdf
Page Number: 15

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

construction that renders state gaming regulations simul-
taneously both (permissible) prohibitions and (impermissi-
ble)  regulations.    Rather  than  supply  coherent  guidance, 
Texas’s  reading  of  the  law  renders  it  an  indeterminate 
mess. 

The State’s interpretation of subsection (a) presents an-
other related problem.  Suppose we could somehow overlook 
the  indeterminacy  its  interpretation  yields  and  adopt  the 
State’s  view  that  it  may  “prohibit”  bingo  under  subsec-
tion (a) not merely by outlawing bingo altogether but also
by  dictating  the  time,  place,  and  manner  in  which  it  is 
played.  On that account, subsection (b) would be left with
no work to perform, its terms dead letters all.  Yes, subsec-
tion  (b)  says  that  it  does  not  federalize  Texas’s  civil  and 
criminal gaming regulations on tribal land.  But, the State 
effectively suggests, we should turn a blind eye to all that. 
It’s a result that defies yet another of our longstanding can-
ons  of  statutory  construction—this  one,  the  rule  that  we 
must  normally  seek  to  construe  Congress’s  work  “so  that
effect is given to all provisions, so that no part will be inop-
erative  or  superfluous,  void  or  insignificant.”  Corley  v. 
United States, 556 U. S. 303, 314 (2009) (internal quotation
marks omitted).  

Seeking a way around these problems, Texas only stum-
bles on another.  The State submits that subsection (b) per-
forms real work even on its reading by denying its courts 
and gaming commission “jurisdiction” to punish violations
of subsection (a) and sending disputes over “regulatory” vi-
olations to federal court instead.  The dissent also embraces 
this approach.  See post, at 14–15.  But this understanding
of subsection (b) only serves to render still another portion
of the statute—subsection (c)—a nullity.  Titled “Jurisdic-
tion  Over  Enforcement  Against  Members,”  subsection  (c)
grants the federal courts “exclusive” jurisdiction over viola-
tions of subsection (a), and it also permits Texas to “brin[g]