Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-631_2d93.pdf
Page Number: 13

10 

BARR v. AMERICAN ASSN. OF POLITICAL  
CONSULTANTS, INC. 
Opinion of KAVANAUGH, J. 

III 
Having concluded that the 2015 government-debt excep-
tion created an unconstitutional exception to the 1991 ro-
bocall restriction, we must decide whether to invalidate the 
entire 1991 robocall restriction, or instead to invalidate and 
sever the 2015 government-debt exception.  Before we apply
ordinary severability principles, we must address plaintiffs’ 
broader initial argument for why the entire 1991 robocall
restriction is unconstitutional. 

A 
Plaintiffs  correctly  point  out  that  the  Government’s  as-
serted interest for the 1991 robocall restriction is consumer 
privacy.  But according to plaintiffs, Congress’s willingness 
to enact the government-debt exception in 2015 betrays a 
newfound  lack  of  genuine  congressional  concern  for  con-
sumer privacy.  As plaintiffs phrase it, the 2015 exception 
“undermines  the  credibility”  of  the  Government’s  interest
in consumer privacy.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 38.  Plaintiffs further 
contend that if Congress no longer has a genuine interest
in consumer privacy, then the underlying 1991 robocall re-
striction is no longer justified (presumably under any level 
of  heightened  scrutiny)  and  is  therefore  now  unconstitu-
tional. 

Plaintiffs’  argument  is  not  without  force,  but  we  ulti-
mately disagree with it.  It is true that the Court has recog-
nized that exceptions to a speech restriction “may diminish 
the credibility of the government’s rationale for restricting 
speech in the first place.”  City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U. S. 
43, 52 (1994).  But here, Congress’s addition of the govern-
ment-debt exception in 2015 does not cause us to doubt the 
credibility  of  Congress’s  continuing  interest  in  protecting
consumer privacy.

After all, the government-debt exception is only a slice of
the overall robocall landscape.  This is not a case where a