Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-840_6jfm.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

20 

CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

types of goods; and (C) §3 was inseverable from the provi-
sions  imposing  tariffs  on  the  goods  they  imported.    The 
Court heard the argument on the merits and, after exten-
sive  analysis,  rejected  the  non-delegation  challenge  to  §3. 
Id., at 680–694.  Because §3 was lawful, the Court did not 
“enter  upon  the  consideration”  of  whether  “other  parts  of
the act, those which directly imposed duties upon articles 
imported, would be inoperative” if §3 were unlawful.  Id., at 
694. 

Similarly, in the Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82 (1879),
this Court reviewed a series of criminal prosecutions for al-
leged  violations  of  an  1876  criminal  law  prohibiting  the
“fraudulent  use,  sale,  and  counterfeiting  of  trade-marks,” 
id., at 92.  The Court held that (A) the prosecutions under
the 1876 Act could not proceed because (B) an 1870 Act cre-
ating the underlying trademark rights exceeded Congress’s 
powers under the Commerce Clause, id., at 95–98, and (C)
the 1876 Act underlying the prosecutions was inseverable 
from the 1870 Act and thus “falls with it,” id., at 99. 

There is nothing novel about the state plaintiffs’ claims.
What  is  new  and  revolutionary  is  the  rule  the  Court  has 
concocted to sink those claims. 

D 
The Court has no real response to the arguments set out
above, so it falls back on the claim that the States forfeited 
those arguments because they (1) did not “directly” argue 
them in the courts below, (2) did not present them at the
certiorari  stage,  and  (3)  did  not  raise  them  in  this  Court.
See ante, at 10.  JUSTICE THOMAS makes a forfeiture argu-
ment expressly.  See ante, at 4–6, and nn. 1–2 (concurring 
opinion).8  There is nothing to any of these arguments. 

—————— 

8 In addition to claiming that the States forfeited the standing theory 
set out in this dissent, JUSTICE THOMAS’s concurrence lists several addi-
tional reasons why we should not address that theory.  None is persua-
sive.