05/23/05, 10:40 PM
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Deep in the heart of Texas
Posts: 2,007
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Citizens have no 1st Amendment right not to fund "government speech"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/po...24scotus.html?
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the government-imposed assessment on beef producers to pay for the "Beef: It's What's for Dinner" marketing campaign does not violate the free-speech rights of dissident ranchers who want to opt out of the program.
Coming after years of constitutional confusion over the many similar programs the Department of Agriculture oversees, for a variety of commodities like cotton, milk and watermelons, the 6-to-3 majority reached its conclusion through a new analytical route that is likely to end much of the courtroom conflict, if not the policy debate behind it.
The speech at issue was "government speech," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, and as such was not subject to challenge under the First Amendment. The decision overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which had declared the beef program unconstitutional as an instance of "compelled speech," reasoning that it forced the dissident producers to subsidize a message with which they disagreed.
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Last edited by primroselane; 05/23/05 at 10:45 PM.
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