Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a87_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 22

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

politically accountable officials of the States ‘to guard and 
protect.’ ”  South Bay, 590 U. S., at ___ (ROBERTS, C. J., con-
curring) (quoting Jacobson, 197 U. S., at 38).  It is not clear 
which part of this lone quotation today’s concurrence finds 
so discomfiting.  The concurrence speculates that there is
so  much  more  to  the  sentence  than  meets  the  eye,  invok-
ing—among  other  interpretive  tools—the  new  “first  case 
cited” rule.  But the actual proposition asserted should be
uncontroversial,  and  the  concurrence  must  reach  beyond
the words themselves to find the target it is looking for.