Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 45

14 

YELLEN v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF CHEHALIS 
RESERVATION 
GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

  In defense of its implausibility argument, the Court sub-
mits any other reading would yield a redundancy.  Unless 
ANCs  are  exempt  from  the  recognition  clause,  the  Court 
suggests, Congress had no reason to mention them in the 
statute’s opening clause because they already “fit into one 
of the pre-existing ISDA categories,” like “ ‘tribe[s], band[s], 
nation[s],  or  other  organized  group[s]  or  communit[ies],’ ”  
ante, at 20–21 (quoting 25 U. S. C §5304(e)). 
  But this much is hard to see too.  Admittedly, illustrative 
examples of more general terms are in some sense always 
redundant.    See  Chickasaw  Nation  v.  United  States,  534 
U. S. 84, 89 (2001) (“[That] is meant simply to be illustra-
tive, hence redundant”).  But Congress often uses illustra-
tive examples in its statutory work, and the practice is not 
entirely pointless.  As this Court has explained, illustrative 
examples can help orient affected parties and courts to Con-
gress’s thinking, and often they serve to “remove any doubt” 
about whether a particular listed entity is captured within 
broader definitional terms.  Ali v. Federal Bureau of Pris-
ons, 552 U. S. 214, 226 (2008); see also Federal Land Bank 
of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95, 99–100 
(1941); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 176–177 (2012).  
That much is certainly true here.  If Congress had failed to 
list ANCs in ISDA’s first clause, a dispute could have arisen 
over whether these corporate entities even qualify as “In-
dian . . . organized group[s] or communit[ies].”  See Brief for 
Petitioners  in  No.  20–544,  p.  5;  supra,  at  9  (citing  43 
U. S. C. §1601(b)). 

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them in ceviche.”  See Cordle, No-Cook Dishes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 
July 17, 2013, p. L4.  Maybe the restaurant meant to speak of ceviche as 
“cooked” in the sense of “fish . . . ‘cooked’ by marinating it in an acidic 
dressing”  like  lime  juice.    See  Bittman,  Ceviche  Without  Fear,  N. Y. 
Times, Aug. 14, 2002, p. F3.  Or maybe the restaurant simply listed every 
dish it makes, understanding some dishes would be excluded by the con-
cluding “cooked” proviso.  Even in the Court’s own hypothetical it is not 
“implausible” to apply the modifier across the board.