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WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. JACKSON

Opinion of the Court

to the facts of this case. The petitioners have plausibly alleged that S. B. 8 has already had a direct effect on their day-to-day operations. See Complaint ¶¶103, 106–109. And they have identified provisions of state law that appear to impose a duty on the licensing-official defendants to bring disciplinary actions against them if they violate S. B. 8. In our judgment, this is enough at the motion to dismiss stage to suggest the petitioners will be the target of an enforcement action and thus allow this suit to proceed.

D

While this interlocutory appeal focuses primarily on the Texas official defendants’ motion to dismiss on grounds of sovereign immunity and justiciability, before we granted certiorari the Fifth Circuit also agreed to take up an appeal by the sole private defendant, Mr. Dickson. In the briefing before us, no one contests this decision. In his appeal, Mr. Dickson argues that the petitioners lack standing to sue him because he possesses no intention to file an S. B. 8 suit against them. Mr. Dickson has supplied sworn declarations so attesting. See, e.g., Brief for Respondent Dickson 32. The petitioners do not contest this testimony or ask us to disregard it. Accordingly, on the record before us the petitioners cannot establish “personal injury fairly traceable to [Mr. Dickson’s] allegedly unlawful conduct.” California v. Texas, 593 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9) (internal quotation marks omitted). No Member of the Court disagrees with this resolution of the claims against Mr. Dickson.

III

While this should be enough to resolve the petitioners’ appeal, a detour is required before we close. Justice Sotomayor charges this Court with “shrink[ing]” from the task of defending the supremacy of the Federal Constitution over state law. Post, at 10. That rhetoric bears no relation to reality.