16 MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment utes as unconstitutionally vague is consistent with the original meaning of the Due Process Clause.” Dimaya, 584 U. S., at 206 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); see Johnson, 576 U. S., at 622 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). The vagueness doctrine was the direct ancestor of one subset of modern facial challenges, the overbreadth doctrine. See United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S. 371, 385 (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (noting that the overbreadth doctrine “developed as a result of the vagueness doctrine’s application in the First Amendment context”). In Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940), the Court deemed an antipicketing statute “invalid on its face” due to its “sweeping proscription of freedom of discussion.” Id., at 101–106. The Thornhill Court did so “[w]ithout considering whether the defendant’s actual conduct was entitled to First Amendment protection,” instead invalidating the law because it “ ‘swept within its ambit . . . activities that in ordinary circumstances constitute an exercise of freedom of speech or of the press.’ ” Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S., at 383 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (quoting Thornhill, 310 U. S., at 97; alteration omitted). Thornhill’s approach quickly gained traction in the First Amendment context. In the years to follow, the Court “invoked [its] rationale to facially invalidate a wide range of laws” concerning First Amendment rights—a practice that became known as the overbreadth doctrine. SinenengSmith, 590 U. S., at 383. Under that doctrine, a court can invalidate a statute if it “prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech,” “relative to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.”5 Williams, 553 U. S., at 292. The Court has never attempted to ground the overbreadth doctrine “in the —————— 5 Although the Court’s precedents describe an unconstitutionally overbroad statute as facially “invalid,” “federal courts have no authority to erase a duly enacted law from the statute books.” J. Mitchell, The Writof-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933, 936 (2018); see Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S., at 387 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).