141 S.Ct. 2104

Supreme Court of the United States.

CALIFORNIA, et al., Petitioners

v.

TEXAS, et al.;

Texas, et al., Petitioners

v.

California, et al.

Nos. 19–840 and 19–1019

|

Argued November 10, 2020

|

Decided June 17, 2021¹

Opinion

Justice BREYER delivered 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As originally enacted in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required most Americans to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage.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. See Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Pub. L. 115–97, § 11081, 131 Stat. 2092 (codified in 26 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. See U. 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. See IRS, 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. Therefore California, along with 15 other States and the District of Columbia (state intervenors), intervened in order to defend the Act's constitutionality, as did the U. S. House of Representatives at the appellate stage, see id., 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). See Texas v. United States, 340 F.Supp.3d 579, 593–595 (ND Tex. 2018). The court held that the minimum essential coverage provision is unconstitutional and not severable from the rest of the Act. It granted relief in the form of a declaration stating just that. Id., at 595–619. It then stayed its judgment pending appeal. See Texas v. United States, 352 F.Supp.3d 665 (ND Tex. 2018).

On appeal, a panel majority agreed with the District Court that the plaintiffs had standing and that the minimum essential coverage provision was unconstitutional. See Texas v. United States, 945 F.3d 355, 377–393 (C.A.5 2019). It found that the District Court's severability analysis, however, was “incomplete.” Id., at 400. It wrote that “[m]ore [wa]s needed to justify” the District Court's order striking down the entire Act. Id., at 401. And it remanded the case for further proceedings. Id., at 402–403.

The state intervenors, defending the Act, asked us to review the lower court decision. We granted their petition for certiorari.

II

We proceed no further than standing. The Constitution gives federal courts the power to adjudicate only genuine “Cases” and “Controversies.” Art. III, § 2. That power includes the requirement that litigants have standing. A plaintiff has standing only if he can “allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342, 126 S.Ct. 1854, 164 L.Ed.2d 589 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have shown that the injury they will suffer or have suffered is “fairly traceable” to the “allegedly unlawful conduct” of which they complain.

A

We begin with the two individual plaintiffs. They claim a particularized individual harm in the form of payments they have made and will make each month to carry the minimum essential coverage that § 5000A(a) requires. The individual plaintiffs point to the statutory language, which, they say, commands them to buy health insurance. But even if we assume that this pocketbook injury satisfies the injury element of Article III standing, the plaintiffs nevertheless fail to satisfy the traceability requirement.

Their problem lies in the fact that the statutory provision, while it tells them to obtain that coverage, has no means of enforcement. With the penalty zeroed out, the IRS can no longer seek a penalty from those who fail to comply. See 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(g) (setting out IRS enforcement only of the taxpayer's failure to pay the penalty, not of the taxpayer's failure to maintain minimum essential coverage). Because of this, there is no possible Government action that is causally connected to the plaintiffs’ injury—the costs of purchasing health insurance. Or to put the matter conversely, that injury is not “fairly traceable” to any “allegedly unlawful conduct” of which the plaintiffs complain. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). They have not pointed to any way in which the defendants, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will act to enforce § 5000A(a). They have not shown how any other federal employees could do so either. In a word, they have not shown that any kind of Government action or conduct has caused or will cause the injury they attribute to § 5000A(a).

[Our] cases have consistently spoken of the need to assert an injury that is the result of a statute's actual or threatened enforcement, whether today or in the future. In the absence of contemporary enforcement, we have said that a plaintiff claiming standing must show that the likelihood of future enforcement is “substantial.”

To consider the matter from the point of view of another standing requirement, namely, redressability, makes clear that the statutory language alone is not sufficient. To determine whether an injury is redressable, a court will consider the relationship between “the judicial relief requested” and the “injury” suffered. Allen, 468 U.S., at 753, n. 19, 104 S.Ct. 3315. The plaintiffs here sought injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment. The injunctive relief, however, concerned the Act's other provisions that they say are inseverable from the minimum essential coverage requirement. The relief they sought in respect to the only provision they attack as unconstitutional—the minimum essential coverage provision—is declaratory relief, namely, a judicial statement that the provision they attacked is unconstitutional.

Remedies, however, ordinarily “operate with respect to specific parties.” Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U. S. ––––, ––––, 138 S.Ct. 1461 1486, 200 L.Ed.2d 854 (2018) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted). In the absence of any specific party, they do not simply operate “on legal rules in the abstract.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Mellon, 262 U.S. at 488, 43 S.Ct. 597 (“If a case for preventive relief be presented, the court enjoins, in effect, not the execution of the statute, but the acts of the official, the statute notwithstanding”).

This suit makes clear why that is so. The Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, alone does not provide a court with jurisdiction. Instead, just like suits for every other type of remedy, declaratory-judgment actions must satisfy Article III's case-or-controversy requirement. At a minimum, this means that the dispute must “be ‘real and substantial’ and ‘admit of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.’ Thus, to satisfy Article III standing, we must look elsewhere to find a remedy that will redress the individual plaintiffs’ injuries.

What is that relief? The plaintiffs did not obtain damages. Nor, as we just said, did the plaintiffs obtain an injunction in respect to the provision they attack as unconstitutional. But, more than that: How could they have sought any such injunction? The provision is unenforceable. There is no one, and nothing, to enjoin. They cannot enjoin the Secretary of Health and Human Services, because he has no power to enforce § 5000A(a) against them. And they do not claim that they might enjoin Congress. In these circumstances, injunctive relief could amount to no more than a declaration that the statutory provision they attack is unconstitutional, i.e., a declaratory judgment. But once again, that is the very kind of relief that cannot alone supply jurisdiction otherwise absent.

The matter is not simply technical. To find standing here to attack an unenforceable statutory provision would allow a federal court to issue what would amount to “an advisory opinion without the possibility of any judicial relief.” It would threaten to grant unelected judges a general authority to conduct oversight of decisions of the elected branches of Government. \

Last, the federal respondents raised for the first time a novel alternative theory of standing on behalf of the individual plaintiffs in their merits brief. (The dissent, alone, puts forward a similar novel theory on behalf of the state plaintiffs.) That theory was not directly argued by the plaintiffs in the courts below, see 945 F.3d at 385–386, and n. 29, and was nowhere presented at the certiorari stage. We accordingly decline to consider it.

B

Next, we turn to the state plaintiffs. We conclude that Texas and the other state plaintiffs have similarly failed to show that they have alleged an “injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct.” Cuno, 547 U.S. at 342, 126 S.Ct. 1854 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). They claim two kinds of pocketbook injuries. First, they allege an indirect injury in the form of the increased use of (and therefore cost to) state-operated medical insurance programs. Second, they claim a direct injury resulting from a variety of increased administrative and related expenses required, they say, by the minimum essential coverage provision, along with other provisions of the Act that, they add, are inextricably “ ‘interwoven’ ” with it.

1

First, the state plaintiffs claim that the minimum essential coverage provision has led state residents subject to it to enroll in state-operated or state-sponsored insurance programs such as Medicaid, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396–1396w, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), see § 1397aa, and health insurance programs for state employees. The state plaintiffs say they must pay a share of the costs of serving those new enrollees. As with the individual plaintiffs, the States also have failed to show how this injury is directly traceable to any actual or possible unlawful Government conduct in enforcing § 5000A(a). Cf. Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 414, n. 5, 133 S.Ct. 1138, 185 L.Ed.2d 264 (2013) (“plaintiffs bear the burden of ... showing that the defendant's actual action has caused the substantial risk of harm” (emphasis added)). That alone is enough to show that they, like the individual plaintiffs, lack Article III standing.

But setting aside that pure issue of law, we need only examine the initial factual premise of their claim to uncover another fatal weakness: The state plaintiffs have failed to show that the challenged minimum essential coverage provision, without any prospect of penalty, will harm them by leading more individuals to enroll in these programs.

We have said that, where a causal relation between injury and challenged action depends upon the decision of an independent third party (here an individual's decision to enroll in, say, Medicaid), “standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily ‘substantially more difficult’ to establish ” Lujan, 504 U.S., at 562, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (quoting Allen, 468 U.S., at 758, 104 S.Ct. 3315); see also Clapper, 568 U.S., at 414, 133 S.Ct. 1138 (expressing “reluctance to endorse standing theories that rest on speculation about the decisions of independent actors”). To satisfy that burden, the plaintiff must show at the least “that third parties will likely react in predictable ways.” Department of Commerce v. New York, 588 U. S. ––––, ––––, 139 S.Ct. 2551, 2566, 204 L.Ed.2d 978 (2019). And, “at the summary judgment stage, such a party can no longer rest on ... mere allegations, but must set forth ... specific facts” that adequately support their contention. Clapper, 568 U.S., at 411–412, 133 S.Ct. 1138 (internal quotation marks omitted). The state plaintiffs have not done so.

The programs to which the state plaintiffs point offer their recipients many benefits that have nothing to do with the minimum essential coverage provision of § 5000A(a). See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396o(a)–(b) (providing for no-cost Medicaid services furnished to children and pregnant women, and for emergency services, hospice care, and COVID–19 testing related services, among others, as well as “nominal” charges for other individuals and services); § 1396o(c) (prohibiting Medicaid premiums for certain individuals with family income below 150 percent of the poverty line and capping the premium at 10 percent of an eligible individual's family income above that line); 26 U.S.C. § 36B(c)(2)(C) (providing premium tax credits to make health insurance plans, including employer-sponsored plans, more affordable). Given these benefits, neither logic nor intuition suggests that the presence of the minimum essential coverage requirement would lead an individual to enroll in one of those programs that its absence would lead them to ignore. A penalty might have led some inertia-bound individuals to enroll. But without a penalty, what incentive could the provision provide?

The evidence that the state plaintiffs introduced in the District Court does not show the contrary. That evidence consists of 21 statements (from state officials) about how new enrollees will increase the costs of state health insurance programs, see App. 79–191, 339–363, along with one statement taken from a 2017 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Report, see id., at 306–311.

Of the 21 statements, we have found only 4 that allege that added state costs are attributable to the minimum essential coverage requirement. And all four refer to that provision as it existed before Congress removed the penalty effective beginning tax year 2019, i.e., while a penalty still existed to be enforced.

2

The state plaintiffs add that § 5000A(a)’s minimum essential coverage provision also causes them to incur additional costs directly. They point to the costs of providing beneficiaries of state health plans with information about their health insurance coverage, as well as the cost of furnishing the IRS with that related information.

The problem with these claims, however, is that other provisions of Act, not the minimum essential coverage provision, impose these other requirements. Nothing in the text of these form provisions suggests that they would not operate without § 5000A(a).

* * *

For these reasons, we conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional. They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act's minimum essential coverage provision. Therefore, we reverse the Fifth Circuit's judgment in respect to standing, vacate the judgment, and remand the cases with instructions to dismiss.

It is so ordered.

Justice THOMAS, concurring.

There is much to commend Justice ALITO's account of “our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy.” This Court has gone to great lengths to rescue the Act from its own text. So have the Act's defenders, who argued in first instance that the individual coverage mandate is the Act's linchpin, yet now, in an about-face, contend that it is just a throwaway sentence.

But, whatever the Act's dubious history in this Court, we must assess the current suit on its own terms. And, here, there is a fundamental problem with the arguments advanced by the plaintiffs in attacking the Act—they have not identified any unlawful action that has injured them. Today's result is thus not the consequence of the Court once again rescuing the Act, but rather of us adjudicating the particular claims the plaintiffs chose to bring.

I

In this suit, the plaintiffs assert that the mandate is unconstitutional because it no longer imposes financial consequences and thus cannot be justified as a tax. And given that the mandate is unconstitutional, other portions of the Act that actually harm the plaintiffs must fall with it. In response to this theory, the current administration contends that the mandate can be severed from the rest of the Act. Letter from E. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, to S. Harris, Clerk of Court (Feb. 10, 2021) (notifying the Court of the Federal Government's change in position). The Act's other defenders agree. In other words, those who would preserve the Act must reverse course and argue that the mandate has transformed from the cornerstone of the law into a standalone provision.

II

On all of this Justice ALITO and I agree. Where we part ways is on the relief to which the plaintiffs are entitled. The Constitution gives this Court only the power to resolve “Cases” or “Controversies.” Art. III, § 2. As everyone agrees, we have interpreted this language to require a plaintiff to present an injury that is traceable to a particular “unlawful” action. Ante, at 2113 – 2114, 2117, 2118 – 2120; post, at 2127 – 2128 (ALITO, J., dissenting). And in light of the specific theories and arguments advanced in this suit, I do not believe that the plaintiffs have carried this burden. As the majority explains in detail, the individual plaintiffs allege only harm caused by the bare existence of an unlawful statute that does not impose any obligations or consequences. That is not enough. The state plaintiffs’ arguments fail for similar reasons. Although they claim harms flowing from enforcement of certain parts of the Act, they attack only the lawfulness of a different provision. None of these theories trace a clear connection between an injury and unlawful conduct.

Justice ALITO does not contest that analysis. Rather, he argues that the state plaintiffs can establish standing another way: through “inseverability.” (“First, [the States] contend that the individual mandate is unconstitutional .... Second, they argue that costly obligations imposed on them by other provisions of the ACA cannot be severed from the mandate. If both steps of the States’ argument that the challenged enforcement actions are unlawful are correct, it follows that the Government cannot lawfully enforce those obligations against the States”). This theory offers a connection between harm and unlawful conduct. And, it might well support standing in some circumstances, as it has some support in history and our case law.

But, I do not think we should address this standing-through-inseverability argument for several reasons. First, the plaintiffs did not raise it below, and the lower courts did not address it in any detail. That omission is reason enough not to address this theory because “ ‘we are a court of review, not of first view.’ ” Brownback v. King, 592 U. S. ––––, ––––, n. 4, 141 S.Ct. 740, 747, n. 4, 209 L.Ed.2d 33 (2021). Second, the state plaintiffs did not raise this theory in their opening brief before this Court, and they did not even clearly raise it in reply.² Third, this Court has not addressed standing-through-inseverability in any detail, largely relying on it through implication. See post, at 2131 – 2134; Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 91, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (“We have often said that drive-by jurisdictional rulings ... have no precedential effect”). And fourth, this Court has been inconsistent in describing whether inseverability is a remedy or merits question. To the extent the parties seek inseverability as a remedy, the Court is powerless to grant that relief. Thus, standing-through-inseverability could only be a valid theory of standing to the extent it treats inseverability as a merits exercise of statutory interpretation. But petitioners have proposed no such theory.

*2123

* * *

The plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the harm they suffered is traceable to unlawful conduct. Although this Court has erred twice before in cases involving the Affordable Care Act, it does not err today.

Justice ALITO, with whom Justice GORSUCH joins, dissenting.

Today's decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two. In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue.

In the opening installment, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 132 S.Ct. 2566, 183 L.Ed.2d 450 (2012) (NFIB), the Court saved the so-called “individual mandate,” the same critical provision at issue in today's suit. At that time, the individual mandate imposed a “penalty” on most Americans who refused to purchase health insurance or enroll in Medicaid, see 26 U.S.C. § 5000A (2012 ed.), and it was widely thought that without the mandate much of the Act—and perhaps even the whole scheme—would collapse. The Government's principal defense of the mandate was that it represented a lawful exercise of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, see U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, but the Court rejected that unprecedented argument [.] That might have foretold doom, but then, in a stunning turn of events, the threat to the ACA was defused when the “penalty” for failing to comply with the mandate was found to be a “tax” and thus to be justified as an exercise of Congress's taxing power. By a vote of 5 to 4, the individual mandate—and with it the rest of the ACA—lived on.

In the next installment, King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473, 135 S.Ct. 2480, 192 L.Ed.2d 483 (2015), the Court carried out an equally impressive rescue. One of the Act's key provisions provided subsidies to persons purchasing insurance through exchanges established by a “State.” When many States refused to establish such exchanges, the Federal Government did so instead. But the critical subsidies were seemingly unavailable on those exchanges, which had not been established by a “State” in any conventional sense of the term. Once again, some feared that the Act was in mortal danger, but the Court came to the rescue by finding that the Federal Government is a “State.”

Now, in the trilogy's third episode, the Court is presented with the daunting problem of a “tax” that does not tax. Can the taxing power, which saved the day in the first episode, sustain such a curious creature? In 2017, Congress reduced the “tax” imposed on Americans who failed to abide by the individual mandate to $0. With that move, the slender reed that supported the decision in NFIB was seemingly cut down, but once again the Court has found a way to protect the ACA. Instead of defending the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the Court simply ducks the issue and holds that none of the Act's challengers, including the 18 States that think the Act saddles them with huge financial costs, is entitled to sue.

Can this be correct? The ACA imposes many burdensome obligations on States in their capacity as employers, and the 18 States in question collectively have more than a million employees.¹ Even $1 in harm is enough to support standing. Yet no State has standing?

In prior cases, the Court has been selectively generous in allowing States to sue. Just recently, New York and certain other States were permitted to challenge the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 census even though any effect on them depended on a speculative chain of events. See Department of Commerce v. New York (See Department of Commerce v. New York, 588 U. S. ––––, –––– – ––––, 139 S.Ct. 2551, 2565-2566, 204 L.Ed.2d 978 (2019). The States’ theory was that the citizenship question might cause some residents to violate their obligation to complete a census questionnaire and that this, in turn, might decrease the States’ allocation of House seats and their share of federal funds. Id., at ––––, 139 S.Ct., at 2565.

Last Term, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were permitted to contest a rule exempting the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious employers from the ACA's contraceptive mandate. Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U. S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 2367, 207 L.Ed.2d 819 (2020). There, the theory was that some affected employees might not be able to afford contraceptives and might therefore turn to state-funded sources to pay for their contraceptives or the expenses of an unwanted pregnancy.² Some years ago, Massachusetts was allowed to sue (and force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases) on the theory that failure to do so would cause the ocean to rise and reduce the size of the Commonwealth. See Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 521–526, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 167 L.Ed.2d 248 (2007). On the other hand, when Texas recently tried to sue to press different legal issues in an original action, the Court would not even allow it to file its complaint

In this suit, as I will explain, Texas and the other state plaintiffs have standing, and now that the “tax” imposed by the individual mandate is set at $0, the mandate cannot be sustained under the taxing power. As a result, it is clearly unconstitutional, and to the extent that the provisions of the ACA that burden the States are inextricably linked to the individual mandate, they too are unenforceable.

I

A

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), 124 Stat. 119, comprehensively reengineered our country's healthcare laws. The Act itself totals 906 pages, and thousands of pages of regulations have been issued to implement it. At its core, the ACA includes a series of “closely interrelated” provisions, NFIB, 567 U.S., at 691, 132 S.Ct. 2566 (joint dissent), that impose a bevy of new legal obligations on individuals, insurers, employers, and States.

A critical component of the Act's design was the individual mandate, which provides that each “applicable individual shall ... ensure that the individual ... is covered under minimum essential coverage.” 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(a). Originally, most individuals who were subject to but disobeyed this command were liable for what the Act called a “[s]hared responsibility payment” or “penalty.” § 5000A(b). The individual mandate was “closely intertwined” with other critical provisions, including the critical “guaranteed issue” and “community rating” provisions, which ensured that individuals with preexisting medical conditions would not be denied coverage or pay unusually high premiums. Put simply, “Congress found that the guaranteed issue and community rating requirements would not work without the” individual mandate.

Several additional features of the ACA are important in this suit. First, certain employers, including the state plaintiffs, must offer employees the opportunity to enroll in costly “minimum essential [healthcare] coverage,” and the Act demands that such plans cover an employee's dependent children until they turn 26. 26 U.S.C. § 4980H; 42 U.S.C. § 300gg–14. Most employers that fail to offer this coverage are subject to a hefty penalty of thousands of dollars per employee. 26 U.S.C. §§ 4980H(a), (b), (c)(1).

The ACA also imposes burdensome reporting requirements on certain employers like the state plaintiffs. See §§ 6055, 6056. Under § 6055 of the Internal Revenue Code, employers that “provid[e] minimum essential coverage” must submit documentation every year to both the Internal Revenue Service and the covered individuals. §§ 6055(a)–(c). Section 6056 imposes similar reporting obligations on “[e]very applicable large employer” subject to the employer mandate. See §§ 6056(a)–(c). Failure to satisfy these reporting requirements can result in substantial monetary penalties. See §§ 6721, 6722.

B

Although the ACA survived this Court's decisions in NFIB and King, it remained controversial, and in 2017, a major effort was made to repeal much of it. A bill to do just that passed the House of Representatives in May, but soon after failed in the Senate. Later that year, the two Chambers compromised in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which set the amount of the “tax” imposed for noncompliance with the individual mandate at “[z]ero percent” and “$0.” What the NFIB Court had salvaged as a “tax” could now raise no revenue.

C

[PROCEDURAL HISTORY OMITTED]

II

We may consider the merits of this appeal if even one plaintiff has standing, Little Sisters of the Poor, 591 U. S., at ––––, n. 6, 140 S.Ct., at 2402, n. 6; but the majority concludes that no plaintiff—neither the States that originally brought suit nor the individual plaintiffs who later joined them—has standing under Article III of the Constitution.

A

The governing rules are well-settled. To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff must show: (1) “an injury in fact”; (2) that this injury “is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant”; and (3) that the injury “is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.”

In the present suit, there is no material dispute that the States have satisfied two of these requirements. First, there is no question that the States have demonstrated an injury in fact. An injury in fact is “an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Spokeo, 578 U. S., at 339, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (internal quotation marks omitted). A financial or so-called “pocketbook” injury constitutes injury in fact, and even a small pocketbook injury—like the loss of $1—is enough. See Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 580 U. S. ––––, ––––, 137 S.Ct. 973, 983, 197 L.Ed.2d 398 (2017) (“For standing purposes, a loss of even a small amount of money is ordinarily an ‘injury’ ”). Here, the States have offered plenty of evidence that they incur substantial expenses in order to comply with obligations imposed by the ACA.

There is likewise no material dispute that these financial injuries could be redressed by a favorable judgment. The District Court declared the entire ACA unenforceable, and that judgment, if sustained, would spare the States from the costs of complying with the ACA's provisions. So too would a more modest judgment limited to only those ACA provisions that directly burden the States.

The standing dispute in this suit thus turns on traceability. But once this requirement is properly understood, it is apparent that it too is met.

Our cases explain that traceability requires “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of.” Lujan, 504 U.S., at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (emphasis added). In other words, the injury has to be “ ‘fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 41, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976); emphasis added). We have repeatedly and consistently described the traceability inquiry this way. See Spokeo, 578 U. S., at 338, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (“The plaintiff must have (1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant”); Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 551 U.S. 587, 598, 127 S.Ct. 2553, 168 L.Ed.2d 424 (2007) (plurality opinion) (“A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct” (internal quotation marks omitted)); DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342, 126 S.Ct. 1854, 164 L.Ed.2d 589 (2006) (“A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 162, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997) (requiring “that the injury is fairly traceable to the actions of the defendant” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Lujan, 504 U.S., at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (requiring an injury “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant” (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)); Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 757, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984) (requiring an injury “fairly traceable to the Government conduct respondents challenge as unlawful”).⁵ * Tracing injuries to particular conduct ensures that the properly adverse parties are before the court and reinforces the traditional understanding of legal judgments. See Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 488, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923) (“If a case for preventive relief be presented,” what the court enjoins are “the acts of the official” charged with the law's enforcement).

The States have clearly shown that they suffer concrete and particularized financial injuries that are traceable to conduct of the Federal Government. The ACA saddles them with expensive and burdensome obligations, and those obligations are enforced by the Federal Government. That is sufficient to establish standing.

Consider what the state plaintiffs have shown with respect to the ACA reporting requirements codified at 26 U.S.C. §§ 6055 and 6056. These sections provide the basis for the familiar 1094 and 1095 IRS tax forms. Section 6055 applies to those who “provid[e] minimum essential coverage to an individual during a calendar year.” Subsection (a) of that provision requires that returns be filed with the IRS, and subsection (c) requires that similar forms be provided to covered individuals. Section 6056 similarly requires certain large employers to report to both the IRS and employees about whether they offer health insurance coverage. The States plainly have demonstrated standing to seek relief from these burdensome reporting obligations.

Start with injury in fact. The States have offered undisputed evidence documenting the ongoing financial costs of complying with these reporting requirements. Missouri, for example, offered a declaration attesting to spending $185,061 in fiscal year 2016 on Forms 1094 and 1095.

Now turn to traceability. Are these financial injuries “fairly traceable to the challenged conduct”? Hollingsworth, 570 U.S., at 704, 133 S.Ct. 2652. The answer is clearly yes. The reporting requirements in §§ 6055 and 6056 are enforceable by the Federal Government, and noncompliance may result in heavy penalties.

That leaves redressability, which asks whether the requested relief is likely to redress the party's injury. Looking to the relief the District Court in fact granted makes it obvious that the States’ injuries in the form of ongoing reporting expenses are redressable. The District Court entered a judgment that, among other things, declared the reporting requirements in §§ 6055 and 6056 unenforceable.  With that judgment in hand, the States would be freed from the obligation to expend funds to comply with those requirements—redressing their financial injury prospectively.

The state plaintiffs have similarly demonstrated standing to seek relief from ACA provisions requiring them to offer expensive health insurance coverage for their employees. Consider the ACA's requirement that group health plans and health insurance offerings extend coverage to adult children until they reach the age of 26. See 42 U.S.C. § 300gg–14(a). Texas has spent more than $80 million complying with that rule.

B

The Court largely ignores the theory of standing outlined above. It devotes most of its attention to two other theories, and when it does address the relevant injuries, its arguments are deeply flawed.

The Court's primary argument rests on a patent distortion of the traceability prong of our established test for standing. Partially quoting a line in Allen, the Court demands a showing that the “Government's conduct in question is ... ‘fairly traceable’ to enforcement of the ‘allegedly unlawful’ provision of which the plaintiffs complain—§ 5000A(a).” Ante, at 2119 (quoting 468 U.S., at 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315; emphasis added). This is a flat-out misstatement of the law and what the Court wrote in Allen. What Allen actually requires is a “personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct,” id., at 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315 (emphasis added). And what this statement means is that the plaintiff ’s “injury” must be traceable to the defendant's conduct, and that conduct must be “allegedly unlawful.”⁷ “Allegedly unlawful” means that the plaintiff must allege that the conduct is unlawful. (The States allege that the challenged enforcement actions are unlawful using a traditional legal argument, see infra, at 2130 – 2134.) But a plaintiff ’s standing (and thus the court's Article III jurisdiction) does not require a demonstration that the defendant's conduct is in fact unlawful. That is a merits issue.

If Article III standing required a showing that the plaintiff ’s alleged injury is traceable to (i.e., in some way caused by) an unconstitutional provision, then whenever a claim of unconstitutionality was ultimately held to lack legal merit—even after a full trial—the consequence would be that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit in the first place. That would be absurd, and this Court has long resisted efforts to transform ordinary merits questions into threshold jurisdictional questions by jamming them into the standing inquiry. … And “ ‘jurisdiction is not defeated by the possibility that the averments [in a complaint] might fail to state a cause of action on which petitioners could actually recover.’ ”

C

The Court's distortion of the traceability requirement is bad enough in itself, but  there is more.

The Court says that the States cannot establish standing unless they show that their injuries are traceable to the individual mandate, and the States claim that their injuries are indeed traceable to the mandate. Their argument proceeds in two steps. First, they contend that the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it does not fall within any power granted to Congress by the Constitution. Second, they argue that costly obligations imposed on them by other provisions of the ACA cannot be severed from the mandate. If both steps of the States’ argument that the challenged enforcement actions are unlawful are correct, it follows that the Government cannot lawfully enforce those obligations against the States.

There can be no question that this argument is conceptually sound. Imagine Statute ABC. Provision A imposes enforceable legal obligations on the plaintiff. Provision B imposes a legal obligation on a different party. And provision C provides that a party is not obligated to comply with provision A if provision B is held to be unconstitutional. Based on the plain text of this law, a party subject to provision A should be able to obtain relief from the enforcement of provision A if it can show that provision B is unconstitutional. To hold otherwise would be directly contrary to the statutory text. But the Court's reasoning would make such a claim impossible. The plaintiff would be thrown out of court at the outset of the case for lack of standing.

That cannot be right. And if the Court really means to foreclose all such claims from now on, that is a big change because we have repeatedly heard such arguments and evaluated them on the merits.

In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 2183, 207 L.Ed.2d 494 (2020), a law firm resisted the CFPB's efforts to enforce a civil investigative demand. The firm argued that (A) it was harmed by actions taken under statutory provisions authorizing the Bureau to issue civil investigative demands; (B) the Bureau's Director, under whose authority the demands had been issued, was protected by an unlawful removal restriction; and (C) the removal restriction was inseverable from the investigative provisions. The Court did not decide the severability issue at the standing stage. Instead, it properly treated severability as a merits issue, held that the removal restriction was unlawful, and considered whether relief could be granted because the investigative provisions were inseverable from the removal restriction. Id., at –––– – ––––, 140 S.Ct., at 2196-2208 (opinion of the Court); id., at –––– – ––––, 140 S.Ct., 2183, 2207-2211 (plurality opinion).

Indeed, the Seila Law Court had little trouble dismissing the same misguided approach to traceability that the majority adopts today. The court-appointed amicus suggested that there was lack of traceability because there was no proof that the injury was caused by the removal restriction. “Our precedents say otherwise,” we explained, as a “plaintiff ’s injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant,” and it is “sufficient that the challenger sustains injury from an executive act that allegedly exceeds the official's authority.” Id., at –––– – ––––, 140 S.Ct. 2183, 2195-2196 (opinion of the Court) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Not a single Justice disputed that conclusion.

[Discussion of Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010), and In Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172, 119 S.Ct. 1187, 143 L.Ed.2d 270 (1999) omitted]

In New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 186, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), the State of New York challenged three provisions of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, Significant for present purposes, the Court accepted New York's challenge to one of those provisions, 505 U.S. at 174–177, 112 S.Ct. 2408, and rejected its challenges to two others, id., at 171–174, 183–186, 112 S.Ct. 2408. But the Court did not stop there. Instead, it went on to consider whether New York nonetheless could obtain relief from the other two provisions on the ground that those provisions were inseverable from the unlawful provision and thus unenforceable In other words, the Court considered whether New York could obtain relief from the enforcement of independently constitutional provisions where a statute contained (A) two independently constitutional provisions; (B) an unconstitutional provision; and (C) the constitutional provisions were arguably inseverable from the unconstitutional provision.

[Discussion of other cases omitted]

There is nothing novel about the state plaintiffs’ claims. What is new and revolutionary is the rule the Court has concocted to sink those claims.

D

The Court has no real response to the arguments set out above, so it falls back on  the claim that the States forfeited those arguments because they (1) did not “directly” argue them in the courts below, (2) did not present them at the certiorari stage, and (3) did not raise them in this Court. Justice THOMAS makes a forfeiture argument expressly. See ante, at 2121 – 2122, and nn. 1–2 (concurring opinion).⁸ There is nothing to any of these arguments.

[Discussion of briefing history omitted]

For these reasons, it is clear that the States did not forfeit the arguments discussed *2135 in this dissent.⁹

* * *

I would hold that the States have demonstrated standing to seek relief from the ACA provisions that burden them and that they claim are inseparable from the individual mandate.

III

Because the state plaintiffs have standing, I proceed to consider the merits of this lawsuit. That requires assessing whether the individual mandate is unlawful and whether it is inseverable from the provisions that burden the States.

I begin with the question whether the individual mandate falls within a power granted to Congress under Article I of the Constitution. The Constitution's text and our precedent compel the conclusion that it does not. [Reasoning omitted]

IV

This brings me to the next question: whether the state plaintiffs have shown that the provisions of the ACA imposing burdens on them are inseparable from the unconstitutional individual mandate. I conclude that those provisions are inextricably linked to the individual mandate and that the States have therefore demonstrated on the merits that those other provisions cannot be enforced against them. Accordingly, the States are entitled to a judgment providing that they are not obligated to comply with the ACA provisions that burden them.

All the opinions in NFIB acknowledged the central role of the individual mandate's tax or penalty. In brief, the ACA aimed to achieve “near-universal” health-care coverage. 42 U.S.C. § 18091(2)(D).

Nothing that has happened since that decision calls for a different conclusion now. It is certainly true that the repeal of the tax or penalty has not caused the collapse of the entire ACA apparatus, but the critical question under the framework applied in the NFIB dissent is not whether the ACA could operate in some way without the individual mandate but whether it could operate in anything like the manner Congress designed. ….

The repeal of the tax or penalty also provides no reason to doubt our previous conclusion about Congress's intent. While the 2017 Act repealed the tax or penalty, it did not alter the statutory finding noted above, and the 2017 Act cannot plausibly be viewed as the manifestation of a congressional intent to preserve the ACA in altered form. The 2017 Act would not have passed the House without the votes of the Members who had voted to scrap the ACA just a few months earlier,¹⁰ and the repeal of the tax or penalty, which they obviously found particularly offensive, was their fallback option. They eliminated the tax or penalty and left the chips to fall as they might. Thus, under the reasoning of the NFIB dissent, the provisions burdening the States are inseverable from the individual mandate.

Having determined that the individual mandate is (1) unlawful and (2) inseverable from the provisions burdening the state plaintiffs, the final question is what to do about it. The answer largely flows from everything I have already said above. Relief in a case runs against parties, not against statutes. And provisions that are inseverable from unconstitutional features of a statute cannot be enforced. No matter how one approaches the question, then, the answer is clear: Because the mandate is unlawful and because the injury-causing provisions are inextricably linked to the mandate, the federal defendants cannot enforce those provisions against the state plaintiffs. And the state plaintiffs are entitled to a judgment providing as much. That answer comports with the reasoning of the NFIB joint dissent, which made clear that the state plaintiffs should not be required to comply with the provisions of the ACA that burden them. See 567 U.S., at 697–707, 132 S.Ct. 2566. And it comports with the remedial approach others have advocated in recent years. See Murphy, 584 U. S., at ––––, 138 S.Ct., at 1469-1470(THOMAS, J., concurring); Seila Law, 591 U. S., at ––––, 140 S.Ct., at 2204 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consultants, Inc., 591 U. S. ––––, ––––, 140 S.Ct. 2335, 2345, 207 L.Ed.2d 784 (2020) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Thus, under either the framework used in the NFIB joint dissent or the alternative framework advocated in subsequent cases, the state plaintiffs are entitled to relief freeing them from compliance with the ACA provisions that burden them.

* * *

No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats. A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge. So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation's history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again.

But I must respectfully dissent.