Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/531/533/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:50:15+00:00

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The Legal Services Corporation Act authorizes petitioner Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to distribute funds appropriated by Congress to local grantee organizations providing free legal assistance to indigent clients in, inter alia, welfare benefits claims. In every annual appropriations Act since 1996, Congress has prohibited LSC funding of any organization that represented clients in an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law. Grantees cannot continue representation in a welfare matter even where a constitutional or statutory validity challenge becomes apparent after representation is well under way. Respondents-lawyers employed by LSC grantees, together with othersfiled suit to declare, inter alia, the restriction invalid. The District Court denied them a preliminary injunction, but the Second Circuit invalidated the restriction, finding it impermissible viewpoint discrimination that violated the First Amendment.
(a) LSC and the Government, also a petitioner, claim that Rust v.
program, the LSC program was designed to facilitate private speech, not to promote a governmental message. An LSC attorney speaks on behalf of a private, indigent client in a welfare benefits claim, while the Government's message is delivered by the attorney defending the benefits decision. The attorney's advice to the client and advocacy to the courts cannot be classified as governmental speech even under a generous understanding of that concept. In this vital respect this suit is distinguishable from Rust. Pp. 540-543.
(b) The private nature of the instant speech, and the extent of LSC's regulation of private expression, are indicated further by the circumstance that the Government seeks to control an existing medium of expression in ways which distort its usual functioning. Cases involving a limited forum, though not controlling, provide instruction for evaluating restrictions in governmental subsidies. Here the program presumes that private, nongovernmental speech is necessary, and a substantial restriction is placed upon that speech. By providing subsidies to LSC, the Government seeks to facilitate suits for benefits by using the State and Federal Judiciaries and the independent bar on which they depend for the proper performance of their duties and responsibilities. Restricting LSC attorneys in advising their clients and in presenting arguments and analyses to the courts distorts the legal system by altering the attorneys' traditional role in much the same way broadcast systems or student publication networks were changed in the limited forum cases of Arkansas Ed. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, and Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., supra. The Government may not design a subsidy to effect such a serious and fundamental restriction on the advocacy of attorneys and the functioning of the judiciary. An informed, independent judiciary presumes an informed, independent bar. However, the instant restriction prevents LSC attorneys from advising the courts of serious statutory validity questions. It also threatens severe impairment of the judicial function by sifting out cases presenting constitutional challenges in order to insulate the Government's laws from judicial inquiry. The result of this restriction would be two tiers of cases. There would be lingering doubt whether an LSC attorney's truncated representation had resulted in complete analysis of the case, full advice to the client, and proper presentation to the court; and the courts and the public would come to question the adequacy and fairness of professional representations when the attorney avoided all reference to statutory validity and constitutional authority questions. A scheme so inconsistent with accepted separation-of-powers principles is an insufficient basis to sustain or uphold the restriction on speech. Pp. 543-546.
(c) That LSC attorneys can withdraw does not make the restriction harmless, for the statute is an attempt to draw lines around the LSC program to exclude from litigation arguments and theories Congress finds unacceptable but which by their nature are within the courts' province to consider. The restriction is even more problematic because in cases where the attorney withdraws, the indigent client is unlikely to find other counsel. There may be no alternative source of vital information on the client's constitutional or statutory rights, in stark contrast to Rust, where a patient could receive both governmentally subsidized counseling and consultation with independent or affiliate organizations. Finally, notwithstanding Congress' purpose to confine and limit its program, the restriction insulates current welfare laws from constitutional scrutiny and certain other legal challenges, a condition implicating central First Amendment concerns. There can be little doubt that the LSC Act funds constitutionally protected expression; and there is no programmatic message of the kind recognized in Rust and which sufficed there to allow the Government to specify the advice deemed necessary for its legitimate objectives. Pp. 546-549.
(d) The Court of Appeals concluded that the funding restriction could be severed from the statute, leaving the remaining portions operative. Because that determination was not contested here, the Court in the exercise of its discretion and prudential judgment declines to address it. P. 549.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 549.
Alan Levine argued the cause for petitioner in No. 99-603.
With him on the briefs was Stephen L. Ascher.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the United States in No. 99-960. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman, Acting Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Beth S. Brinkmann, Barbara L. Herwig, and Matthew M. Collette.
In 1974, Congress enacted the Legal Services Corporation Act, 88 Stat. 378, 42 U. S. C. § 2996 et seq. The Act establishes the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) as a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation. LSC's mission is to distribute funds appropriated by Congress to eligible local grantee organizations "for the purpose of providing financial support for legal assistance in noncriminal proceedings or matters to persons financially unable to afford legal assistance." § 2996b(a).
tBriefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Pacific Legal Foundation by John H. Findley; and for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and R. Shawn Gunnarson.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Arthur N Eisenberg and Steven R. Shapiro; and for the New York State Bar Association et al. by Bruce A. Green and Lawrence S. Lustberg.
Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., filed a brief for the American Judicature Society as amicus curiae.
funded by recipients of LSC moneys if the representation involves an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law. As interpreted by the LSC and by the Government, the restriction prevents an attorney from arguing to a court that a state statute conflicts with a federal statute or that either a state or federal statute by its terms or in its application is violative of the United States Constitution.
Lawyers employed by New York City LSC grantees, together with private LSC contributors, LSC indigent clients, and various state and local public officials whose governments contribute to LSC grantees, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to declare the restriction, among other provisions of the Act, invalid. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit approved an injunction against enforcement of the provision as an impermissible viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, 164 F.3d 757 (1999). We granted certiorari, and the parties who commenced the suit in the District Court are here as respondents. The LSC as petitioner is joined by the Government of the United States, which had intervened in the District Court. We agree that the restriction violates the First Amendment, and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
are barred from bringing class-action suits unless express approval is obtained from LSC. § 2996e(d)(5).
"that initiates legal representation or participates in any other way, in litigation, lobbying, or rulemaking, involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system, except that this paragraph shall not be construed to preclude a recipient from representing an individual eligible client who is seeking specific relief from a welfare agency if such relief does not involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing law in effect on the date of the initiation of the representation."
The prohibitions apply to all of the activities of an LSC grantee, including those paid for by non-LSC funds. §§ 504(d)(1) and (2). We are concerned with the statutory provision which excludes LSC representation in cases which "involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing law in effect on the date of the initiation of the representation."
grantees could not accept representations designed to change welfare laws, much less argue against the constitutionality or statutory validity of those laws. Brief for Petitioner in No. 99-603, p. 7. Even in cases where constitutional or statutory challenges became apparent after representation was well under way, LSC advised that its attorneys must withdraw. Ibid.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. 164 F.3d 757 (1999). As relevant for our purposes, the court addressed respondents' challenges to the restrictions in § 504(a)(16). It concluded the section specified four categories of prohibited activities, of which "three appear[ed] to prohibit the type of activity named regardless of viewpoint, while one might be read to prohibit the activity only when it seeks reform." Id., at 768. The court upheld the restrictions on litigation, lobbying, and rulemaking "involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system," since all three prohibited grantees' involvement in these activities regardless of the side of the issue. Id., at 768-769.
The court next considered the exception to § 504(a)(16) that allows representation of "'an individual eligible client who is seeking specific relief from a welfare agency.'" The court invalidated, as impermissible viewpoint discrimination, the qualification that representation could "not involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing law," because it "clearly seeks to discourage challenges to the status quo." Id., at 769-770.
smallest possible portion of the statute, excising only the viewpoint-based proviso rather than the entire exception of which it is a part." Id., at 773.
Dissenting in part, Judge Jacobs agreed with the majority except for its holding that the proviso banning challenges to existing welfare laws effected impermissible viewpointbased discrimination. The provision, in his view, was permissible because it merely defined the scope of services to be funded. Id., at 773-778 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
LSC filed a petition for certiorari challenging the Court of Appeals' conclusion that the § 504(a)(16) suits-for-benefits proviso was unconstitutional. We granted certiorari, 529 U. S. 1052 (2000).
in abortion advocacy and counseling in exchange for the subsidy. Id., at 196.
Neither the latitude for government speech nor its rationale applies to subsidies for private speech in every instance, however. As we have pointed out, "[i]t does not follow ... that viewpoint-based restrictions are proper when the [government] does not itself speak or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead expends funds to encourage a diversity of views from private speakers." Rosenberger, supra, at 834.
Although the LSC program differs from the program at issue in Rosenberger in that its purpose is not to "encourage a diversity of views," the salient point is that, like the program in Rosenberger, the LSC program was designed to facilitate private speech, not to promote a governmental message. Congress funded LSC grantees to provide attorneys to represent the interests of indigent clients. In the specific context of § 504(a)(16) suits for benefits, an LSC-funded attorney speaks on the behalf of the client in a claim against the government for welfare benefits. The lawyer is not the government's speaker. The attorney defending the decision to deny benefits will deliver the government's message in the litigation. The LSC lawyer, however, speaks on the behalf of his or her private, indigent client. Cf. Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 321-322 (1981) (holding that a public defender does not act "under color of state law" because he "works under canons of professional responsibility that mandate his exercise of independent judgment on behalf of the client" and because there is an "assumption that counsel will be free of state control").
as governmental speech even under a generous understanding of the concept. In this vital respect this suit is distinguishable from Rust.
(1991). As this suit involves a subsidy, limited forum cases such as Perry, Lamb's Chapel, and Rosenberger may not be controlling in a strict sense, yet they do provide some instruction. Here the program presumes that private, nongovernmental speech is necessary, and a substantial restriction is placed upon that speech. At oral argument and in its briefs the LSC advised us that lawyers funded in the Government program may not undertake representation in suits for benefits if they must advise clients respecting the questionable validity of a statute which defines benefit eligibility and the payment structure. The limitation forecloses advice or legal assistance to question the validity of statutes under the Constitution of the United States. It extends further, it must be noted, so that state statutes inconsistent with federal law under the Supremacy Clause may be neither challenged nor questioned.
must cease the representation at once. This is true whether the validity issue becomes apparent during initial attorneyclient consultations or in the midst of litigation proceedings. A disturbing example of the restriction was discussed during oral argument before the Court. It is well understood that when there are two reasonable constructions for a statute, yet one raises a constitutional question, the Court should prefer the interpretation which avoids the constitutional issue. Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S. 858, 864 (1989); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). Yet, as the LSC advised the Court, if, during litigation, a judge were to ask an LSC attorney whether there was a constitutional concern, the LSC attorney simply could not answer. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9.
Interpretation of the law and the Constitution is the primary mission of the judiciary when it acts within the sphere of its authority to resolve a case or controversy. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803) ("It is emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is"). An informed, independent judiciary presumes an informed, independent bar. Under § 504(a)(16), however, cases would be presented by LSC attorneys who could not advise the courts of serious questions of statutory validity. The disability is inconsistent with the proposition that attorneys should present all the reasonable and well-grounded arguments necessary for proper resolution of the case. By seeking to prohibit the analysis of certain legal issues and to truncate presentation to the courts, the enactment under review prohibits speech and expression upon which courts must depend for the proper exercise of the judicial power. Congress cannot wrest the law from the Constitution which is its source. "Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law." Id., at 178.
gress seeks to restrict. This is in stark contrast to Rust. There, a patient could receive the approved Title X family planning counseling funded by the Government and later could consult an affiliate or independent organization to receive abortion counseling. Unlike indigent clients who seek LSC representation, the patient in Rust was not required to forfeit the Government-funded advice when she also received abortion counseling through alternative channels. Because LSC attorneys must withdraw whenever a question of a welfare statute's validity arises, an individual could not obtain joint representation so that the constitutional challenge would be presented by a non-LSC attorney, and other, permitted, arguments advanced by LSC counsel.
Finally, LSC and the Government maintain that § 504(a)(16) is necessary to define the scope and contours of the federal program, a condition that ensures funds can be spent for those cases most immediate to congressional concern. In support of this contention, they suggest the challenged limitation takes into account the nature of the grantees' activities and provides limited congressional funds for the provision of simple suits for benefits. In petitioners' view, the restriction operates neither to maintain the current welfare system nor insulate it from attack; rather, it helps the current welfare system function in a more efficient and fair manner by removing from the program complex challenges to existing welfare laws.
ment can the LSC attorney, speaking on behalf of a private client, challenge existing welfare laws. As a result, arguments by indigent clients that a welfare statute is unlawful or unconstitutional cannot be expressed in this Governmentfunded program for petitioning the courts, even though the program was created for litigation involving welfare benefits, and even though the ordinary course of litigation involves the expression of theories and postulates on both, or multiple, sides of an issue.
It is fundamental that the First Amendment "'was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the peopie.'" New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 269 (1964) (quoting Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 484 (1957)). There can be little doubt that the LSC Act funds constitutionally protected expression; and in the context of this statute there is no programmatic message of the kind recognized in Rust and which sufficed there to allow the Government to specify the advice deemed necessary for its legitimate objectives. This serves to distinguish § 504(a)(16) from any of the Title X program restrictions upheld in Rust, and to place it beyond any congressional funding condition approved in the past by this Court.
Congress' antecedent funding decision cannot be aimed at the suppression of ideas thought inimical to the Government's own interest. Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 548 (1983); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 519 (1958).
For the reasons we have set forth, the funding condition is invalid. The Court of Appeals considered whether the language restricting LSC attorneys could be severed from the statute so that the remaining portions would remain operative. It reached the reasoned conclusion to invalidate the fragment of § 504(a)(16) found contrary to the First Amendment, leaving the balance of the statute operative and in place. That determination was not discussed in the briefs of either party or otherwise contested here, and in the exercise of our discretion and prudential judgment we decline to address it.
the statute Congress never enacted. I respectfully dissent from both aspects of the judgment.
The Legal Services Corporation Act of 1974 (LSC Act), 42 U. S. C. § 2996 et seq., is a federal subsidy program, the stated purpose of which is to "provid[e] financial support for legal assistance in noncriminal proceedings or matters to persons financially unable to afford legal assistance." § 2996b(a). Congress, recognizing that the program could not serve its purpose unless it was "kept free from the influence of or use by it of political pressures," § 2996(5), has from the program's inception tightly regulated the use of its funds. See ante, at 537-538. No Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funds may be used, for example, for "encouraging ... labor or antilabor activities," § 2996f(b)(6), for "litigation relating to the desegregation of any elementary or secondary school or school system," § 2996f(b)(9), or for "litigation which seeks to procure a nontherapeutic abortion," § 2996f(b)(8). Congress discovered through experience, however, that these restrictions did not exhaust the politically controversial uses to which LSC funds could be put.
Accordingly, in 1996 Congress added new restrictions to the LSC Act and strengthened existing restrictions. Among the new restrictions is the one at issue here. Section 504(a)(16) of the Appropriations Act, 110 Stat. 1321-55 to 1321-56, withholds LSC funds from every entity that "participates in any ... way ... in litigation, lobbying, or rulemaking ... involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system." It thus bans LSC-funded entities from participating on either side of litigation involving such statutes, from participating in rulemaking relating to the implementation of such legislation, and from lobbying Congress itself regarding any proposed changes to such legislation. See 45 CFR § 1639.3 (2000).
The restrictions relating to rulemaking and lobbying are superfluous; they duplicate general prohibitions on the use of LSC funds for those activities found elsewhere in the Appropriations Act. See §§ 504(a)(2), (3), (4). The restriction on litigation, however, is unique, and it contains a proviso specifying what the restriction does not cover. Funding recipients may "represen[t] an individual eligible client who is seeking specific relief from a welfare agency if such relief does not involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing law in effect on the date of the initiation of the representation." The LSC declares in its brief, and respondents do not deny, that under these provisions the LSC can sponsor neither challenges to nor defenses of existing welfare reform law, Brief for Petitioner in No. 99-603, p. 29. The litigation ban is symmetrical: Litigants challenging the covered statutes or regulations do not receive LSC funding, and neither do litigants defending those laws against challenge.
If a suit for benefits raises a claim outside the scope of the LSC program, the LSC-funded lawyer may not participate in the suit. As the Court explains, if LSC-funded lawyers anticipate that a forbidden claim will arise in a prospective client's suit, they "may not undertake [the] representation," ante, at 544. Likewise, if a forbidden claim arises unexpectedly at trial, "LSC-funded attorney[s] must cease the representation at once," ante, at 544-545. See also Brief for Petitioner in No. 99-603, at 7, n.4 (if the issue arises at trial, "the lawyer should discontinue the representation 'consistent with the applicable rules of professional responsibility' "). The lawyers may, however, and indeed must explain to the client why they cannot represent him. See 164 F.3d 757, 765 (CA2 1999). They are also free to express their views of the legality of the welfare law to the client, and they may refer the client to another attorney who can accept the representation, ibid. See 985 F. Supp. 323, 335336 (EDNY 1997).
tion marks omitted). Absent such a threat, "the Government may allocate ... funding according to criteria that would be impermissible were direct regulation of speech or a criminal penalty at stake." 524 U. S., at 587-588.
In Rust v. Sullivan, supra, the Court applied these principles to a statutory scheme that is in all relevant respects indistinguishable from § 504(a)(16). The statute in Rust authorized grants for the provision of family planning services, but provided that "[n]one of the funds ... shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning." Id., at 178. Valid regulations implementing the statute required funding recipients to refer pregnant clients "for appropriate prenatal ... services by furnishing a list of available providers that promote the welfare of mother and unborn child," but forbade them to refer a pregnant woman specifically to an abortion provider, even upon request. Id., at 180. We rejected a First Amendment free-speech challenge to the funding scheme, explaining that "[t]he Government can, without violating the Constitution, selectively fund a program to encourage certain activities it believes to be in the public interest, without at the same time funding an alternative program which seeks to deal with the problem another way." Id., at 193. This was not, we said, the type of "discriminat[ion] on the basis of viewpoint" that triggers strict scrutiny, ibid., because the" 'decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right,'" ibid. (quoting Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., supra, at 549).
Rust that decision "does not infringe the right" to bring such litigation. Cf. Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U. S. 656, 658-660, and n. 5 (1973) (per curiam) (government not required by First Amendment or Due Process Clause to waive filing fee for welfare benefits litigation). The Court's repeated claims that § 504(a)(16) "restricts" and "prohibits" speech, see, e. g., ante, at 545, 546, and "insulates" laws from judicial review, see, e. g., ante, at 547, are simply baseless. No litigant who, in the absence of LSC funding, would bring a suit challenging existing welfare law is deterred from doing so by § 504(a)(16). Rust thus controls these cases and compels the conclusion that § 504(a)(16) is constitutional.
The Court contends that Rust is different because the program at issue subsidized government speech, while the LSC funds private speech. See ante, at 541-542. This is so unpersuasive it hardly needs response. If the private doctors' confidential advice to their patients at issue in Rust constituted "government speech," it is hard to imagine what subsidized speech would not be government speech. Moreover, the majority's contention that the subsidized speech in these cases is not government speech because the lawyers have a professional obligation to represent the interests of their clients founders on the reality that the doctors in Rust had a professional obligation to serve the interests of their patients, see 500 U. S., at 214 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) ("ethical responsibilities of the medical profession")-which at the time of Rust we had held to be highly relevant to the permissible scope of federal regulation, see Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 763 (1986) ("professional responsibilities" of physicians), overruled in part on other grounds, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). Even respondents agree that "the true speaker in Rust was not the government, but a doctor." Brief for Respondents 19, n. 17.
ing the restriction on this conventional First Amendment ground, League of Women Voters goes on to say that "[o]f course," the restriction on editorializing "would plainly be valid" if "Congress were to adopt a revised version of [the statute] that permitted [public radio] stations to establish 'affiliate' organizations which could then use the station's facilities to editorialize with nonfederal funds." Id., at 400. But of course that is the case here. Regulations permit funding recipients to establish affiliate organizations to conduct litigation and other activities that fall outside the scope of the LSC program. See 45 CFR pt. 1610 (2000). Far from supporting the Court's nondistortion analysis, League of Women Voters dooms the Court's case.
681, n. 12 (1986), would be so eager to hold the much lesser step of declining to subsidize the litigation unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Nor will the judicial opinions produced by LSC cases systematically distort the interpretation of welfare laws. Judicial decisions do not stand as binding "precedent" for points that were not raised, not argued, and hence not analyzed. See, e. g., United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 272 (1990); Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 533, n. 5 (1974); United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 37-38 (1952); United States v. More, 3 Cranch 159, 172 (1805) (Marshall, C. J.). The statutory validity that courts assume in LSC cases will remain open for full determination in later cases.
that restrict an indigent woman's ability to enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected freedom of choice are the product not of governmental restrictions on access to abortion, but rather of her indigency." 500 U. S., at 203 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The only conceivable argument that can be made for distinguishing Rust is that there even patients who wished to receive abortion counseling could receive the nonabortion services that the Government-funded clinic offered, whereas here some potential LSC clients who wish to receive representation on a benefits claim that does not challenge the statutes will be unable to do so because their cases raise a reform claim that an LSC lawyer may not present. This difference, of course, is required by the same ethical canons that the Court elsewhere does not wish to distort. Rather than sponsor "truncated representation," ante, at 546, Congress chose to subsidize only those cases in which the attorneys it subsidized could work freely. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 2996(6) ("[A]ttorneys providing legal assistance must have full freedom to protect the best interests of their clients"). And it is impossible to see how this difference from Rust has any bearing upon the First Amendment question, which, to repeat, is whether the funding scheme is "'manipulated' to have a 'coercive effect'" on those who do not hold the subsidized position. National Endowment for Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S., at 587 (quoting Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S., at 237 (SCALIA, J., dissenting)). It could be claimed to have such an effect if the client in a case ineligible for LSC representation could eliminate the ineligibility by waiving the claim that the statute is invalid; but he cannot. No conceivable coercive effect exists.
sidy upheld in Rust v. Sullivan, supra. There is no legitimate basis for declaring § 504(a)(16) facially unconstitutional.
The Court has said that "[w]e may consider questions outside the scope of the limited order [granting certiorari] when resolution of those questions is necessary for the proper disposition of the case." Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U. S. 235,246-247, n. 12 (1981). I think it necessary to a "proper disposition" here because the statute concocted by the Court of Appeals bears little resemblance to what Congress enacted, funding without restriction welfare-benefits litigation that Congress funded only under the limitations of § 504(a)(16). Although no party briefed severability in Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U. S. 727 (1996), the Justices finding partial unconstitutionality considered it necessary to address the issue. Id., at 767 (plurality opinion) ("[W]e must ask whether § 10(a) is severable"); accord, New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 186 (1992). I think we have that same obligation here. Moreover, by exercising our "discretion" to leave the severability question open, we fail to resolve the basic, real-world dispute at issue: whether LSC attorneys may represent welfare claimants who challenge the applicable welfare laws. Indeed, we leave the LSC program subject to even a greater uncertainty than the one we purport to have eliminated, since other circuits may conclude (as I do) that if the limitation upon welfare representation is unconstitutional, LSC attorneys cannot engage in welfare litigation at all.
litigation); § 504(a)(4) (local, state, and federal lobbying); § 504(a)(7) (class-action lawsuits); § 504(a)(12) (training programs for, inter alia, boycotts, picketing, and demonstrations); § 504(a)(14) (litigation with respect to abortion). The severability question here is, essentially, whether, without the restriction that the Court today invalidates, the permission for conducting welfare litigation would have been accorded. As far as appears from the best evidence (which is the structure of the statute), I think the answer must be no.
have no authority to "rewrite [the] statute and give it an effect altogether different" from what Congress agreed to. Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330, 362 (1935) (quoted in Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 313 (1936)).
It is illuminating to speculate how these cases would have been decided if Congress had enacted § 504(a)(16) without its proviso (prescribing only the general ban against "litigation, lobbying, or rulemaking, involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system"), and if the positions of the parties before us here were reversed. If the LSC-funded lawyers were here arguing that the statute permitted representation of individual welfare claimants who did not challenge existing law, I venture to say that the Court would endorse their argument-perhaps with stirring language about the importance of aid to welfare applicants and the Court's unwillingness to presume without clear indication that Congress would want to eliminate it. And I have little doubt that in that context the Court would find its current First Amendment musings as unpersuasive as I find them today.
restriction-and then, to add insult to InJury, permits to stand a judgment that awards the general litigation funding that the statute does not contain. I respectfully dissent.
The next page is purposely numbered 801. The numbers between 563 and 801 were intentionally omitted, in order to make it possible to publish the orders with permanent page numbers, thus making the official citations available upon publication of the preliminary prints of the United States Reports.
No. 99-1870. ADLER ET AL. V. DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD ET AL. C. A. 11th Cir. Certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and case remanded for further consideration in light of Santa Fe Independent School Dist. V. Doe, 530 U. S. 290 (2000). Reported below: 206 F.3d 1070.
No. 99-6775. BLUE V. UNITED STATES. C. A. 4th Cir. Motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis granted. Certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and case remanded for further consideration in light of Apprendi V. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000). Reported below: 187 F.3d 631.
No. 99-7351. GIBSON, AKA WILLIS V. UNITED STATES. C. A. 4th Cir. Motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis granted. Certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and case remanded for further consideration in light of Apprendi V. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000). Reported below: 187 F.3d 631.
No. 99-8958. WIMS V. UNITED STATES. C. A. 11th Cir. Motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis granted. Certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and case remanded for further consideration in light of Apprendi V. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000). Reported below: 207 F.3d 661.
No. 99-9902. BURTON V. UNITED STATES. C. A. 5th Cir. Motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis granted. Certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and case remanded for further consideration in light of Apprendi V. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000). Reported below: 211 F.3d 125.

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