"Zombie statutes," non-universality, and judicial departmentalism

The opening paragraph of this Fifth Circuit opinion by Judge Costa accurately describes judicial review (H/T: Josh Blackman):

It is often said that courts “strike down” laws when ruling them unconstitutional. That’s not quite right. See Jonathan F. Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 VA.L.REV. 933, 936 (2018). Courts hold laws unenforceable; they do not erase them. Id. Many laws that are plainly unconstitutional remain on the statute books. Jim Crow-era segregation laws are one example. See Gabriel J. Chin et al., Still on the Books: Jim Crow and Segregation Laws Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education, 2006 MICH.ST.L.REV. 457 (highlighting the segregationist laws still present in the codes of several states); see also Josh Blackman, The Irrepressible Myth of Cooper v. Aaron, 107 GEO.L.J. 1135, 1199 (2019) (noting that the Texas law criminalizing sodomy at issue in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), remains in the state code).

The opinion deals with what Costa calls "zombie statutes"--laws in one state that remain on the books but are unenforceable (at least judicially, more on that below) in light of SCOTUS precedent declaring an identical law from a different state invalid. The challenge here was to a Houston ordinance requiring initiative/petition circulators to be registered voters; SCOTUS in Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation declared an identical Colorado law to violate the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit held that the plaintiffs had standing and that the case was not moot--there was sufficient threat of enforcement despite Buckley and the city's addition of an Editor's Note to its code--stating that it would accept petitions from non-registered voters and provided a form for such petitions--was not sufficient to moot the case.

This "zombie law" concept is interesting. I wish I had it in front of me (or had thought of the term myself) when writing about the link between non-universality and judicial departmentalism. Because those concepts inform what makes a zombie law.

Because of non-universality, the concept should not be limited to the situation at hand--State B's law is a zombie because of a decision involving State A's law. State B's law can be a zombie because of a decision involving that law as to non-parties to the prior litigation. It also means we could have federal zombie laws. The point is the same in all--the prior judgment spoke to the challenged law and the involved party, not to any other law or any other party.

Because of judicial departmentalism, it is arguably unfair to call any law a zombie law. Because if the government believes, in its independent judgment, that the law is constitutionally valid, it acts within the full scope of its constitutional power in enacting or enforcing it, regardless of contrary precedent. In that sense, the law is alive and enforceable. On the other hand, maybe zombie is the right term because the laws are undead--they are alive in remaining on the books and in remaining enforceable by a departmentalism government, but the actual or threatened enforcement is DOA in court, where SCOTUS precedent binds and determines the outcome. On a third hand, maybe we need distinct terms to capture distinct concepts--law on the books but no intention to enforce v. law on the books with intention to enforce--rather than lumping everything as a zombie.