478
Opinion of the Court
a party's right not to be bound by an unconstitutional statute, see, e. g., Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 965-967, and n. 13 (1984), we neither want nor need to provide relief to nonparties when a narrower remedy will fully protect the litigants. See Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 484-485 (1989). In this case, granting full relief to respondents— who include all Executive Branch employees below grade GS-16—does not require passing on the applicability of § 501(b) to Executive Branch employees above grade GS-15, including those high-level employees who received a 25% salary increase that offsets the honoraria ban's disincentive to speak and write. Second, the Government conceivably might advance a different justification for an honoraria ban limited to more senior officials, thus presenting a different constitutional question than the one we decide today.23 Our
policy of avoiding unnecessary adjudication of constitutional issues, see Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346-347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring), therefore counsels against determining senior officials' rights in this case. Third, as the Court of Appeals recognized, its remedy required it to tamper with the text of the statute,24 a practice we strive to avoid.
23 The parties to whom the lower courts granted relief include a single GS-16 employee. See supra, at 461. The rationale we have set forth for our holding does not necessarily apply to him. However, the Government does not request, as part of its suggested alternative to outright reversal, that we reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment as to that one employee. Accordingly, we leave that part of the court's judgment intact.
24 The Court of Appeals said: "We cannot, as a technical matter, achieve the intended severance simply by striking the words 'officer or employee' from § 501(b), as that would invalidate the ban beyond the executive branch. . . . However, given the far greater congressional interest in banning honoraria for the legislative and judicial branches, we think it a proper form of severance to strike 'officer or employee' from § 501(b) except in so far as those terms encompass members of Congress, officers and employees of Congress, judicial officers and judicial employees." 990 F. 2d, at 1279.
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