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Page Number: 43

18 

CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

hunting rights, but the Bands argued that (A) one portion 
of the Executive Order purported to extinguish their hunt-
ing rights; (B) a different portion of the Executive Order—
the “removal order,” which had nothing to do with hunting 
rights—was  unlawful;  and  (C)  the  hunting  rights  revoca-
tion was inseverable from the removal order and thus inef-
fective.  The Court entertained this argument on the merits
and granted relief.  It first assumed “that the severability 
standard for statutes also applies to Executive Orders.”  Id., 
at 191.  Then it determined that there was “no statutory or
constitutional authority” for the removal order and that the 
“Executive  Order  was  insufficient  to  [revoke  hunting 
rights]  because  it  was  not  severable  from  the  invalid  re-
moval order.”  Id., at 193, 195.  In other words, the Bands 
obtained  relief  with  the  same  type  of  argument  the  state 
plaintiffs press here.

In New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 186 (1992), 
the  State  of  New  York  challenged  three  provisions  of  the
Low-Level  Radioactive  Waste  Policy  Amendments  Act  of 
1985, 99 Stat. 1842, 42 U. S. C. §2021b et seq.  Significant
for present purposes, the Court accepted New York’s chal-
lenge to one of those provisions, 505 U. S., at 174–177, and
rejected its challenges to two others, id., at 171–174, 183– 
186.  But the Court did not stop there.  Instead, it went on 
to consider whether New York nonetheless could obtain re-
lief from the other two provisions on the ground that those 
provisions  were  inseverable  from  the  unlawful  provision 
and  thus  unenforceable.    Id.,  at  186–187;  see  Printz  v. 
United  States,  521  U. S.  898,  935  (1997)  (explaining  that 
New York “address[ed] severability where remaining provi-
sions at issue affected the plaintiffs”).  In other words, the 
Court  considered  whether  New  York  could  obtain  relief 
from the enforcement of independently constitutional pro-
visions  where  a  statute  contained  (A)  two  independently
constitutional provisions; (B) an unconstitutional provision;