618
Souter, J., dissenting
must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid." United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987). But quite apart from any question that might be raised about that statement as a general rule,11
it is beyond question, as the Court freely concedes, that it can have no application here, it being well settled that the general rule does not limit challenges brought under the First Amendment's speech clause.
There is an "exception to th[e] [capable-of-constitutional-application] rule recognized in our jurisprudence [for] facial challenge[s] based upon First Amendment free-speech grounds. We have applied to statutes restricting speech a so-called 'overbreadth' doctrine, rendering such a statute invalid in all its applications (i. e., facially invalid) if it is invalid in any of them." Ada v. Guam Society of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 506 U. S. 1011, 1012 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); 12 see, e. g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844 (1997) (striking down decency provision of Communications Decency Act as facially overbroad); id., at 893-894 (OTMConnor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (declining to apply the rule of Salerno because the plaintiffs' claim arose under the First Amendment); Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452 U. S., at 66 ("Because appellants' claims are rooted in the First Amendment, they are entitled to . . . raise an over-breadth challenge") (internal quotation marks omitted); Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 521-522 (1972).13 Thus,
11 Cf., e. g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 895 (1992) (statute restricting abortion will be struck down if, "in a large fraction of the cases in which [the statute] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman's choice to undergo an abortion").
12 We have, however, recognized that "the overbreadth doctrine does not apply to commercial speech." Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U. S. 489, 497 (1982).
13 Cf. United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987) ("The fact that the Bail Reform Act might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid, since
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