Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 562

Cite as: 558 U. S. 310 (2010) 

401 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

feature  of  regulatory  systems  that  unanticipated  events, 
such as  new technologies, may  raise some  unanticipated dif­
ﬁculties  at  the  margins.  The  ﬂuid  nature  of  electioneering 
communications  does  not  make  this  case  special.  The  fact 
that  a  Court  can  hypothesize  situations  in  which  a  statute 
might,  at  some  point  down  the  line,  pose  some  unforeseen 
as-applied  problems,  does  not  come  close  to  meeting  the 
standard for a facial challenge.6 

The  majority  proposes  several  other  justiﬁcations  for  the 
sweep of its ruling.  It suggests that a facial ruling is neces­
sary  because,  if  the  Court  were  to  continue  on  its  normal 
course  of  resolving  as-applied  challenges  as  they  present 
themselves,  that  process  would  itself  run  afoul  of  the  First 
Amendment.  See, e. g., ante, at 326 (as-applied review proc­
ess  “would  raise  questions  as  to  the  courts’  own  lawful  au­
thority”); ibid. (“Courts, too, are bound by the First Amend­
ment”).  This suggestion is perplexing.  Our colleagues 
elsewhere trumpet “our duty ‘to say what the law is,’ ” even 
when our predecessors on the bench and our counterparts in 
Congress have interpreted the law differently.  Ante, at 365 
(quoting  Marbury  v.  Madison,  1  Cranch  137,  177  (1803)). 
We  do  not  typically  say  what  the  law  is  not  as  a  hedge 
against  future  judicial  error.  The  possibility  that  later 
courts will misapply a constitutional provision does not give 

6 Our cases recognize a “type of facial challenge in the First Amendment 
context under which a law may be overturned as impermissibly overbroad 
because  a  substantial  number  of  its  applications  are  unconstitutional.” 
Washington  State  Grange  v.  Washington  State  Republican  Party,  552 
U. S.  442,  449,  n.  6  (2008)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Citizens 
United has not made an overbreadth argument, and “[w]e generally do not 
apply  the  strong  medicine  of  overbreadth  analysis  where  the  parties  fail 
to  describe  the  instances  of  arguable  overbreadth  of  the  contested  law,” 
ibid.  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  If  our  colleagues  nonetheless 
concluded  that  § 203’s  fatal  ﬂaw  is  that  it  affects  too  much  protected 
speech, they should have invalidated it for overbreadth and given guidance 
as  to which  applications  are  permissible, so  that  Congress  could go  about 
repairing the error.