Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 47

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

3 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

operate  sports-gambling  schemes,  responsibility  for  the 
proscriptions  is  hardly  blurred.    It  cannot  be  maintained 
credibly  that  state  officials  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
restraints.    Unmistakably,  the  foreclosure  of  sports-
gambling  schemes,  whether  state  run  or  privately  oper- 
ated,  is  chargeable  to  congressional,  not  state,  legislative 
action. 
  When a statute reveals a constitutional flaw, the Court 
ordinarily  engages  in  a  salvage  rather  than  a  demolition 
operation:  It  “limit[s]  the  solution  [to]  severing  any  prob-
lematic portions while leaving the remainder intact.”  Free 
Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight 
Bd.,  561  U. S.  477,  508  (2010)  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).    The  relevant  question  is  whether  the  Legisla-
ture  would  have  wanted  unproblematic  aspects  of  the 
legislation  to  survive  or  would  want  them  to  fall  along 
with  the  infirmity.3    As  the  Court  stated  in  New  York, 
“[u]nless it is evident that the Legislature would not have 
enacted  those  provisions  which  are  within  its  power,  . . . 
the  invalid  part  may  be  dropped  if  what  is  left  is  fully 
operative as a law.”  505 U. S., at 186 (internal quotation 
marks  omitted).    Here,  it  is  scarcely  arguable  that  Con-
gress  “would  have  preferred  no  statute  at  all,”  Executive 
Benefits  Ins.  Agency  v.  Arkison,  573  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2014) 
(slip  op.,  at  10),  over  one  that  simply  stops  States  and 
private  parties  alike  from  operating  sports-gambling 
schemes. 
  The  Court  wields  an  ax  to  cut  down  §3702  instead  of 
using a scalpel to trim the statute.  It does so apparently 
in  the  mistaken  assumption  that  private  sports-gambling 
schemes  would  become  lawful  in  the  wake  of  its  decision.  
—————— 

3

 Notably,  in  the  two  decisions  marking  out  and  applying  the  anti-
commandeering doctrine to invalidate federal law, the Court invalidated 
only  the  offending  provision,  not  the  entire  statute.    New  York  v. 
United  States,  505  U. S.  144,  186–187  (1992);  Printz  v.  United  States, 
521 U. S. 898, 935 (1997).