Cite as: 513 U. S. 454 (1995)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
no-nexus speech. But it is equally, if not more, inconsistent with congressional intent to strike a greater portion of the statute than is necessary to remedy the problem at hand. Although our jurisprudence in this area is hardly a model of clarity, this Court has on several occasions declared a statute invalid as to a particular application without striking the entire provision that appears to encompass it. In United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171 (1983), for example, the Court addressed the constitutionality of a federal statute making it unlawful to "parade, stand, or move in processions or assemblages in the Supreme Court Building or grounds," or "to display therein any flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice any party, organization, or movement." 40 U. S. C. § 13k. Finding the statute's extension to public fora inadequately justified, the Court deemed the provision unconstitutional as applied to the sidewalks surrounding the Supreme Court. Grace, supra, at 183. In Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985), the Court invalidated a state provision permitting police officers to use " 'all the necessary means to effect the arrest' " of a fleeing or forcibly resisting defendant only insofar as it authorized the use of deadly force against an unarmed, nondangerous suspect. Id., at 4, 22. In Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491 (1985), the Court invalidated a state obscenity statute "only insofar as the word 'lust' is taken to include normal interest in sex." Id., at 504-505.
In Brockett, the Court declared: "[W]here the parties challenging the statute are those who desire to engage in protected speech that the overbroad statute purports to punish, or who seek to publish both protected and unprotected material[,] . . . [t]he statute may forthwith be declared invalid to the extent that it reaches too far, but otherwise left intact." Id., at 504. Of course, we also noted that "[p]artial invalidation would be improper if it were contrary to legislative intent in the sense that the legislature had passed an inseverable Act or would not have passed it had it known the
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