Cal. v. Tex.

• Decision Date: 17 June 2021
• Docket Number: Nos. 19–840,19–1019,s. 19–840
• Citation: 210 L.Ed.2d 230,141 S.Ct. 2104
• Parties: CALIFORNIA, et al., Petitioners v. TEXAS, et al.; Texas, et al., Petitioners v. California, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

141 S.Ct. 2104

210 L.Ed.2d 230

CALIFORNIA, et al., Petitioners

v.TEXAS, et al.;

Texas, et al., Petitioners

v.California, et al.

Nos. 19–840

19–1019

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued November 10, 2020

Decided June 17, 2021¹

Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, Jeffrey C. Mateer, First Assistant Attorney General, Ryan L. Bangert, Deputy First Assistant Attorney General.Kyle D. Hawkins, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Matthew H. Frederick, Deputy Solicitor General, Lanora C. Pettit, Judd E. Stone II, Assistant Solicitors General, Office of The Attorney General, Austin, Texas, for Cross-Petitioners

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California, Kathleen Boergers, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Nimrod Pitsker Elias, Neli N. Palma, Deputy Attorneys General.Michael J. Mongan, Solicitor General, Samuel P. Siegel, Counsel of Record, Deputy Solicitor General, Amari L. Hammonds, Associate Deputy Solicitor General.State of California, Department of Justice, Sacramento, CA, for Petitioners-Cross-Respondents.

William Tong, Attorney General of Connecticut, Joseph Rubin, Assistant Deputy Attorney GeneralCounsel for the State of Connecticut.

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General of Colorado, Eric R. Olson, Solicitor General, Counsel for the State of Colorado.

Kathleen Jennings, Attorney General of Delaware, Christian Douglas Wright, Director of Impact Litigation, Ilona Kirshon, DeputyState Solicitor, Jessica M. Willey, Deputy Attorney General, Counsel for the State of Delaware.

Clare E. Connors, Attorney General of Hawaii, Robert T. Nakatsuji, First Deputy Solicitor General, Counsel for the State of Hawaii.

Kwame Raoul, Attorney General of Illinois, Jane Elinor Notz, Solicitor General, David F. Buysse, Deputy Chief, Public Interest Division, Matthew V. Chimienti, Assistant Attorney General, Special Litigation Bureau Counsel for the State of Illinois.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, Nathan Blake, Deputy Attorney GeneralCounsel for the State of Iowa.

Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Eric Gold, Chief, Health Care Division Counsel for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Dana Nessel, Attorney General of Michigan, Fadwa A. Hammoud, Solicitor General Counsel for the State of Michigan.

Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota, Scott Ikeda, Assistant Attorney GeneralCounsel for the State of Minnesota, by and through its Department of Commerce.

Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General of Nevada, Heidi Parry Stern, Solicitor General Counsel for the State of Nevada.

Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General of New Jersey, Matthew J. Berns, Assistant Attorney General, Marie Soueid, Deputy Attorney GeneralCounsel for the State of New Jersey.

Letitia James, Attorney General of New York, Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Steven C. Wu Deputy Solicitor General, Lisa Landau, Bureau Chief, Health Care Bureau, Elizabeth Chesler, Assistant Attorney General, Health Care Bureau Counsel for the State of New York.

Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General of North Carolina, Ryan Y. Park, Solicitor General, Sripriya Narasimhan, Deputy General Counsel, Counsel for the State of North Carolina.

Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General of Oregon, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, Counsel for the State of Oregon.

Peter F. Neronha, Attorney General of Rhode Island, Michael W. Field, Maria R. Lenz, Assistant Attorneys General Counsel for the State of Rhode Island.

Thomas J. Donovan, JR., Attorney General of Vermont, Benjamin D. Battles, Solicitor General Counsel for the State of Vermont.

Mark R. Herring, Attorney General of Virginia, Toby J. Heytens, Solicitor General, Counsel for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Robert W. Ferguson, Attorney General of Washington, Jeffrey G. Rupert, Chief, Complex Litigation Divisio, Jeffrey T. Sprung, Assistant Attorney GeneralCounsel for the State of Washington.

La Tasha Buckner, General Counsel, S. Travis Mayo, Chief Deputy General Counsel, Taylor Payne, Deputy General Counsel, Counsel for Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky.

Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Loren L. Alikhan, Solicitor General, Caroline S. Van Zile, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Counsel for the District of Columbia.

Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Elaine J. Goldenberg, Ginger D. Anders, Jonathan S. Meltzer, Jeremy S. Kreisberg, Rachel G. Miller-Ziegler, Jacobus P. van der Ven, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Washington, D.C., Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne J. Gorod, Ashwin P. Phatak, Constitutional Accountability Center, Washington, D.C., Douglas N. Letter, General Counsel, Counsel of Record, Adam A. Grogg, Associate General Counsel, Jonathan B. Schwartz, Attorney Office of General Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., Counsel for Respondent United States House of Representatives.

Tyler R. Green, Bryan Weir, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC, Arlington, VA, Robert Henneke, Counsel of Record, Munera Al-Fuhaid, J. Aaron Barnes, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Austin, TX, Counsel for RespondentsNeill Hurley and John Nantz.

Noel J. Francisco Solicitor General Counsel of Record, Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey B. Wall, Deputy Solicitor General, Nicole Frazer Reaves, Assistant to the Solicitor General, August E. Flentje, Special Counsel, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Respondents.

Justice BREYERdelivered the opinion of the Court.

As originally enacted in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required most Americans to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage.The Act also imposed a monetary penalty, scaled according to income, upon individuals who failed to do so.In 2017, Congress effectively nullified the penalty by setting its amount at $0.SeeTax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Pub. L. 115–97, § 11081,131 Stat. 2092(codified in26 U.S.C. § 5000A(c) ).

Texas and 17 other States brought this lawsuit against the United States and federal officials.They were later joined by two individuals (Neill Hurley and John Nantz).The plaintiffs claim that without the penalty the Act's minimum essential coverage requirement is unconstitutional.Specifically, they say neither the Commerce Clause nor the Tax Clause (nor any other enumerated power) grants Congress the power to enact it.SeeU. S. Const., Art. I, § 8.They also argue that the minimum essential coverage requirement is not severable from the rest of the Act.Hence, they believe the Act as a whole is invalid.We do not reach these questions of the Act's validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them.

I

A

We begin by describing the provision of the Act that the plaintiffs attack as unconstitutional.The Act says in relevant part:

"(a) Requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage

"An applicable individual shall ... ensure that the individual, and any dependent ... who is an applicable individual, is covered under minimum essential coverage ....

"(b) Shared responsibility payment

"(1) In general

"If a taxpayer who is an applicable individual ... fails to meet the requirement of subsection (a) ... there is hereby imposed on the taxpayer a penalty ... in the amount determined under subsection (c).

"(2) Inclusion with return

"Any penalty imposed by this section ... shall be included with a taxpayer's return ... for the taxable year ...."26 U.S.C. § 5000A.

The Act defines "applicable individual" to include all taxpayers who do not fall within a set of exemptions.See§ 5000A(d).As first enacted, the Act set forth a schedule of penalties applicable to those who failed to meet its minimum essential coverage requirement.See§ 5000A(c)(2012).The penalties varied with a taxpayer's income and exempted, among others, persons whose annual incomes fell below the federal income tax filing threshold.See§ 5000A(e)(2012).And the Act required that those subject to a penalty include it with their annual tax return.See§ 5000A(b)(2)(2012).In 2017, Congress amended the Act by setting the amount of the penalty in each category in § 5000A(c) to "$0," effective beginning tax year 2019.See§ 11081,131 Stat. 2092.

Before Congress amended the Act, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had implemented § 5000A(b) by requiring individual taxpayers to report with their federal income tax return whether they carried minimum essential coverage (or could claim an exemption).After Congress amended the Act, the IRS made clear that the statute no longer requires taxpayers to report whether they do, or do not, maintain that coverage.SeeIRS, Publication 5187, Tax Year 2019, p. 5("Form 1040 ... will not have the ‘full-year health care coverage or exempt’ box and Form 8965, Health Coverage Exemptions, will no longer be used as the shared responsibility payment is reduced to zero").

B

In 2018, Texas and more than a dozen other States (state plaintiffs) brought this lawsuit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, among others.App. 12, 34.They sought a declaration that § 5000A(a) ’s minimum essential coverage provision is unconstitutional, a finding that the rest of the Act is not severable from § 5000A(a), and an injunction against the rest of the Act's enforcement.Id. , at 61–63.Hurley and Nantz (individual plaintiffs) soon joined them.Although nominally defendants to the suit, the United States took the side of the plaintiffs.See Brief for Federal Respondents 12–13 (arguing that the Act is unconstitutional).Therefore California, along with 15 other States and the District of Columbia(state intervenors), intervened in order to defend the Act's constitutionality, seeApp. 12–13, as did the U. S. House of Representatives at the appellate stage, seeid. , at 3.

After taking evidence, the District Court found that the individual plaintiffs had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the minimum essential coverage provision, § 5000A(a).SeeTexas v. United States , 340 F.Supp.3d 579, 593–595(ND Tex.2018).The court held that the...