as this court held in reynolds, the congress left it to the attorney general to determine whether sorna would apply retroactively at all. congress declined to make the initial decision as to whether any offender should be required to register. this was consistent with how congress had approached registration schemes in the past. congress had previously enacted registration legislation that conditioned state funding on requiring certain things from sex offender registries, and in each of these prior cases, congress had not made the law retroactive. and so there's nothing strange about congress doing this. as the court held in reynolds, it then gave the attorney general full authority to decide whether the law should be applied retroactively so the initial on-off determination, but then as well, how it should apply, which offenders should be included, if it should extend all the way back to 20, 30, 40 years. there was absolutely no guidance provided to the attorney general -- >> suppose the statute said that the attorney general shall have the authority to determine the application of thi

conservative justices troubled by the delegation in the census case and troubled by the delegation in the sorna case, gundy. separate from that, you see the gorsuch dissent, it really sort of is the bold, strong attack, one that thomas previously signaled in 2015, he wrote that was solo authored concurrence. now we're getting at least three votes fully. in addition, justice alito concurred in the judgment saying he was open to reconsidering the delegation doctrine, but unless the court was doing that, he thought this case was easy. kavanaugh wasn't on the court when argued, so it was an 8 justice panel. we know when he was on the d.c. circuit he had some opinions indicating he was willing to pull back on administrative power at times, using delegation. so it is possible there may be a majority for some pull back on delegation in the near future. >> can i ask an inside question about that. we have four members on the left saying i'm not applying to nondelegation statute. three more conservatives saying i apply the doctrine aggressively. justice alito saying i don't have a five justice majority,