Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024)
9
Opinion of the Court
II
NetChoice chose to litigate these cases as facial challenges, and that decision comes at a cost. For a host of good
reasons, courts usually handle constitutional claims case by
case, not en masse. See Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 552 U. S. 442, 450–451
(2008). “Claims of facial invalidity often rest on speculation” about the law’s coverage and its future enforcement.
Id., at 450. And “facial challenges threaten to short circuit
the democratic process” by preventing duly enacted laws
from being implemented in constitutional ways. Id., at 451.
This Court has therefore made facial challenges hard to
win.
That is true even when a facial suit is based on the First
Amendment, although then a different standard applies. In
other cases, a plaintiff cannot succeed on a facial challenge
unless he “establish[es] that no set of circumstances exists
under which the [law] would be valid,” or he shows that the
law lacks a “plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987); Washington State Grange,
552 U. S., at 449. In First Amendment cases, however, this
Court has lowered that very high bar. To “provide[ ] breathing room for free expression,” we have substituted a less demanding though still rigorous standard. United States v.
Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 769 (2023). The question is whether
“a substantial number of [the law’s] applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Americans for Prosperity Foundation v.
Bonta, 594 U. S. 595, 615 (2021); see Hansen, 599 U. S., at
770 (likewise asking whether the law “prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech relative to its plainly legitimate sweep”). So in this singular context, even a law with
“a plainly legitimate sweep” may be struck down in its entirety. But that is so only if the law’s unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh its constitutional ones.
So far in these cases, no one has paid much attention to