556
Scalia, J., dissenting
ing the restriction on this conventional First Amendment ground, League of Women Voters goes on to say that "[o]f course," the restriction on editorializing "would plainly be valid" if "Congress were to adopt a revised version of [the statute] that permitted [public radio] stations to establish 'affiliate' organizations which could then use the station's facilities to editorialize with nonfederal funds." Id., at 400. But of course that is the case here. Regulations permit funding recipients to establish affiliate organizations to conduct litigation and other activities that fall outside the scope of the LSC program. See 45 CFR pt. 1610 (2000). Far from supporting the Court's nondistortion analysis, League of Women Voters dooms the Court's case.
The Court's "nondistortion" principle is also wrong on the facts, since there is no basis for believing that § 504(a)(16), by causing "cases [to] be presented by LSC attorneys who [can]not advise the courts of serious questions of statutory validity," ante, at 545, will distort the operation of the courts. It may well be that the bar of § 504(a)(16) will cause LSC-funded attorneys to decline or to withdraw from cases that involve statutory validity. But that means at most that fewer statutory challenges to welfare laws will be presented to the courts because of the unavailability of free legal services for that purpose. So what? The same result would ensue from excluding LSC-funded lawyers from welfare litigation entirely. It is not the mandated, nondistortable function of the courts to inquire into all "serious questions of statutory validity" in all cases. Courts must consider only those questions of statutory validity that are presented by litigants, and if the Government chooses not to subsidize the presentation of some such questions, that in no way "distorts" the courts' role. It is remarkable that a Court that has so studiously avoided deciding whether Congress could entirely eliminate federal jurisdiction over certain matters, see, e. g., Webster v. Doe, 486 U. S. 592, 603 (1988); Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U. S. 667,
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