USCA4 Appeal: 25-1892
Doc: 16
Filed: 10/15/2025
Pg: 57 of 97
plausible basis to hold that transactions expressly subject to the CFTC’s
“exclusive jurisdiction” could nonetheless fall outside the field Congress
intended to preempt. Instead, the district court effectively rewrote the CEA to make the CFTC’s jurisdiction “exclusive except for state gambling laws .”
That is not the text Congress enacted.
The district court speculated that, even though Congress generally
granted the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the field of trading on
DCMs, Congress did not intend to preempt gambling laws. JA162-163. But
nothing in the CEA’s text or structure provides any basis to conclude that
states may apply gambling laws in an otherwise preempted field. Courts “may not replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress’ intent.” Just Puppies , 123 F.4th at 661 (quotation omitted). Where field preemption applies, it does not permit a “case -by- case analysis” of which state laws Congress may have silently wished to preserve. Nazarian , 753 F.3d at 475
(quotation omitted).
Even if speculating about legislative motives were permissible, more
than a century of history refutes the district court ’s belief that it is “highly
unlikely that Congress would have overridden state gambling laws” in the
CEA. JA167-168. To the contrary, extensive evidence shows that this was
precisely Congress’s intent . Before the CEA, many states attempted to
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