Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-03-30523/USCOURTS-ca5-03-30523-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 950
Nature of Suit: Contitutionality of State Statutes
Cause of Action: 

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1 Mr. Landreneau replaced James A. Jenkins as secretary after the district

court ruled. To avoid confusion, we refer to Mr. Landreneau as the Secretary.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

April 2, 2004

Charles R. Fulbruge III

Clerk

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

 

No. 03-30523

 

PELTS & SKINS, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

WILLIAM DWIGHT LANDRENEAU, Secretary for the Department of

Wildlife and Fisheries,

Defendant-Appellant.

--------------------

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Louisiana, Baton Rouge

--------------------

Before KING, Chief Judge, and BENAVIDES and CLEMENT, Circuit

Judges.

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellee Pelts & Skins farms alligators in

Louisiana. Defendant-Appellant William Dwight Landreneau is

Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

(“DWF”), the agency responsible for overseeing conservation of

alligators.1 Louisiana requires alligator hunters and farmers to

pay various fees, and DWF uses a portion of those fees to support

generic marketing of alligator products. Pelts & Skins alleges

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2 This type of scheme--compelled subsidies for generic marketing--has

produced many familiar campaigns, including “Got Milk?”; “Pork: The Other White

Meat”; “The Incredible, Edible Egg”; “Ah . . . the Power of Cheese”; and “The

Touch . . . the Feel of Cotton . . .the Fabric of Our Lives.” See Cochran v.

2

that this practice constitutes a compelled subsidy for private

speech that violates the First Amendment. The district court

agreed with Pelts & Skins and permanently enjoined use of the fees

to support generic marketing of alligator products.

We conclude that Pelts & Skins lacks standing to challenge the

use of certain alligator-related fees. With regard to the fees

Pelts & Skins does have standing to challenge, we agree with the

district court that the use of those fees for generic marketing

violates the First Amendment. We therefore affirm in part, vacate

in part, and remand in part.

I.

The American alligator was once endangered, but Louisiana law

now allows the hunting and farming of alligators for their meat and

skins. DWF regulates the hunting, farming, processing, and

shipment of alligators and alligator parts. See La. Rev. Stat.

Ann. § 36:602(B) (West Supp. 2004). DWF does not regulate the

prices or marketing of alligators, but it does administer two

funds, the proceeds of which support generic marketing of alligator

products: the Louisiana Fur and Alligator Public Education and

Marketing Fund (the “Marketing Fund”) and the Louisiana Alligator

Resource Fund (the “Resource Fund”). The generic marketing

supported by these two funds is the focus of this case.2

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Veneman, 359 F.3d 263, 266 (3d Cir. 2004); Mich. Pork Producers Ass’n v. Veneman,

348 F.3d 157, 162 & n.2 (6th Cir. 2003), petition for cert. filed sub. nom.

Veneman v. Campaign for Family Farms, 72 U.S.L.W. 3539 (U.S. Jan. 20, 2004) (No.

03-1043).

 

3 The state treasurer may apply collected fees to the Marketing Fund and the

Resource Fund only after she ensures that state revenues can cover due and

payable state debts. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 266(D)(1), 279(C)(1) (West Supp.

2004). The record does not indicate that the treasurer has ever applied

alligator-related fees to state debts.

 

4 Section 56:253(C)(2)(a) allows DWF to charge up to four dollars per tag,

and during some years, Pelts & Skins paid four dollars per tag. But starting in

September 2002, DWF temporarily suspended the collection of two dollars of the

regular four-dollar fee. La. Admin. Code tit. 76, § 701(A)(4)(a)(xi) (2003).

3

The Marketing Fund derives its revenues from license fees,

i.e., the fees associated with the hunting licenses that fur

trappers and alligator hunters must carry. See id. §§ 56:251(A),

56:266(D). Twenty dollars of every twenty-five-dollar license fee

are earmarked for the Marketing Fund.3 Id. The Louisiana

Legislature created the Marketing Fund to market alligator and fur

products, to educate the public about the harvesting of those

products, and to recommend strategies to the fur and alligator

industry. Id. § 56:266(B).

The Resource Fund derives its revenues from a variety of fees

imposed on alligator hunters, farmers, and processors. Id.

§ 56:279. The most notable of these fees is the tag fee, a charge

for the tag that must be attached to every harvested alligator

skin. Id. § 56:253(C).4 The Legislature created the Resource Fund

“to help defray the cost of alligator programs” administered by

DWF. Id. § 56:279(A). The Resource Fund supports alligatorrelated research and, when surplus funds are available, helps to

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4

fund alligator-related law enforcement and marketing programs. Id.

§ 56:279(B).

DWF monitors both funds, and the Secretary must approve all

expenditures for generic marketing, but another state-created

entity, the Louisiana Fur and Alligator Advisory Council (the

“Council”), is directly responsible for the content of the generic

marketing and must review and approve all expenditures from the

funds. Id. §§ 266(C), 279(D)(3). The Council comprises the

Secretary (or his designate), who serves ex officio, and eleven

appointed members. Id. § 56:266(C). The speaker of the House and

the president of the Senate each appoint one member. Id. The

Secretary appoints nine members, and those nine members must

represent “a cross-section of trappers, alligator hunters, coastal

landowners, and alligator farmers.” Id. Two of those nine members

must represent a private organization, the Louisiana Alligator

Farmers and Ranchers Association. Id. The Secretary may appoint

the remaining seven members based on nominations from the Louisiana

Trappers and Alligator Hunters Association. Id.

Pelts & Skins, as Louisiana’s (and the world’s) largest

alligator farming operation, pays fees that account for roughly 25%

of the alligator-related revenues received by DWF. Pelts & Skins

does not object to the collection of these revenues but does object

to the expenditure of these funds on generic marketing. According

to Pelts & Skins, its business depends on convincing consumers that

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5 Pelts & Skins’ objection to the message embodied in generic marketing may

seem minor, but the Supreme Court has explained that the perceived importance of

a plaintiff’s objection is immaterial. See United States v. United Foods, 533

U.S. 405, 411 (2001) (“First Amendment values are at serious risk if the

government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to

pay special subsidies for speech on the side that it favors; and there is no

apparent principle which distinguishes out of hand minor debates about whether

a branded mushroom is better than just any mushroom.”).

5

it produces a unique product that is superior in quality to other

alligator products. Generic alligator marketing undercuts this

message because generic marketing does not differentiate between

particular types, qualities, or brands of alligator products, but

rather promotes the notion that alligator products in general are

desirable, reliably available, and lawfully produced.5 Pelts &

Skins also hints broadly that the Council’s generic marketing

campaign, which consists mainly of sending representatives to

fashion shows and setting up educational displays, is a boondoggle.

However, Pelts & Skins is quick to clarify that its objection to

generic marketing stems from the message of that marketing, not its

efficacy.

Based on its objection to the generic marketing’s content,

Pelts & Skins sought to enjoin DWF from expending revenues from the

Marketing Fund and the Resource Fund for generic alligator

marketing. According to Pelts & Skins, Louisiana violated the

First Amendment by imposing mandatory fees on Pelts & Skins, then

using those fees to subsidize a message with which Pelts & Skins

disagrees. In response, the Secretary argued (1) that the Tax

Injunction Act of 1937 barred federal jurisdiction; (2) that the

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6 The Secretary has appealed neither the district court’s findings of fact

nor its ultimate holding with regard to the Tax Injunction Act.

6

generic marketing at issue was government speech not subject to

First Amendment scrutiny; and (3) that, in the alternative, the

generic marketing was merely ancillary to a broader cooperative

regime and therefore consistent with the First Amendment.

The parties agreed to submit the case on the record without

live testimony. The district court determined (1) that the Tax

Injunction Act did not bar federal jurisdiction; (2) that the

generic marketing was not government speech; and (3) that the use

of mandatory fees to fund generic marketing was not ancillary to a

broader cooperative regime. Pelts & Skins, L.L.C. v. Jenkins, 259

F. Supp. 2d 482 (M.D. La. 2003). The court permanently enjoined

the Secretary from “approving, authorizing or expending any revenue

from the Louisiana Fur and Alligator Public Education and Marketing

Fund or from the Louisiana Alligator Resource Fund for the purpose

of generic alligator marketing.” Id. at 494. The Secretary

appealed.6

II.

We first address the Secretary’s contention that Pelts & Skins

lacks standing to challenge expenditures from the Marketing Fund.

The Secretary failed to raise this argument in the district court,

but a party may raise standing at any time, even on appeal.

Johnson v. City of Dallas, 61 F.3d 442, 443-44 (5th Cir. 1995).

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7 We must address standing on a claim-by-claim basis, so Pelts & Skins cannot

parlay its standing to challenge the Resource Fund into standing to challenge the

Marketing Fund. See James v. City of Dallas, 254 F.3d 551, 563 (5th Cir. 2001).

 

8 As noted above, the parties agreed to let the hearing on Pelts & Skins’

motion for summary judgment serve as a submission of the case on the merits. The

district court treated the case as a trial on a stipulated record. See Pelts &

Skins, 259 F. Supp. 2d at 483. At oral argument, Pelts & Skins claimed that it

did not realize that the trial court would go beyond addressing the motion for

summary judgment. However, even had this case been resolved on summary judgment,

Pelts & Skins could not have rested on mere allegations, but would have had to

set forth specific facts by affidavit or other evidence. See Lujan v. Defenders

of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992).

 

9 This parenthetical does not mean that Pelts & Skins did not need to support

its allegations with evidence because the Secretary failed to controvert those

allegations in the district court. Were we to interpret Walker in this way, we

would undermine the established rule that objections to standing may not be

waived. See Lang v. French, 154 F.3d 217, 222 n.28 (5th Cir. 1998); In re

Weaver, 632 F.2d 46, 463 n.6 (5th Cir. 1980).

7

The first requirement of standing is that a party must

demonstrate an injury in fact. See McConnell v. FEC, 124 S. Ct.

619, 707 (2003). Pelts & Skins alleges that it has been injured in

fact because it must pay fees that directly support a message with

which it disagrees. The Secretary claims that Pelts & Skins has

failed to prove this injury with regard to the Marketing Fund. The

Secretary concedes that Pelts & Skins has paid the tag fees that

support the Resource Fund, and the record amply supports that

concession.7 However, according to the Secretary, Pelts & Skins

has not shown that it has ever paid the license fees that support

the Marketing Fund.

We agree with the Secretary that Pelts & Skins failed to prove

that Louisiana’s use of the marketing fund has caused an injury in

fact. Because this case proceeded to final judgment,8 “the factual

allegations supporting standing (if controverted)9 must be

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10 Pelts & Skins also relies on a sentence from the Secretary’s Answer in

which the Secretary “admit[s] . . . that plaintiff does contribute to the fund.”

Answer ¶ 24. However, this so-called admission is ambiguous; the Secretary’s

statement does not specify which of the two funds Pelts & Skins has contributed

to. Because this statement is less than “deliberate, clear, and unequivocal,”

it cannot serve as a judicial admission. See Heritage Bank v. Redcom Labs.,

Inc., 250 F.3d 319, 329 (5th Cir. 2001).

8

supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial.” Walker v.

City of Mesquite, 169 F.3d 973, 978 (5th Cir. 1999); see also Lujan

v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). Pelts & Skins

must support each element of standing just as it would support any

other matter on which it bears the burden of proof. Lewis v.

Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 358 (1996).

Pelts & Skins has not carried this burden. Nowhere does the

record indicate that Pelts & Skins ever held a hunting license or

paid any fee that supports the Marketing Fund. Instead, Pelts &

Skins relies on assertions in pleadings. Had the district court

decided this case on a motion to dismiss, these allegations would

be sufficient; however, once a case passes this preliminary stage,

a plaintiff must set forth evidence of an injury in fact. See

Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561 (1992); Walker, 169 F.3d at 978 & n.15.10

The record contains no such evidence.

Pelts & Skins also relies on the district court’s finding that

“plaintiff’s farming operation is conditioned upon payment of

mandatory fees (‘license fees’ and ‘tag fees’) to the DWF.” 259 F.

Supp. 2d at 483-84. We review for clear error the findings

underlying a district court’s determination of standing. Rivera v.

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11 The Secretary also argues that the relevant statutes provide that only a

natural person, not a corporate entity such as Pelts & Skins, can hold a hunting

license. Because the district court can consider these arguments on remand, we

need not discuss them except to say that neither the governing statutes, see La.

Rev. Stat. Ann. § 56:8, 56:54 (West Supp. 2004), nor the governing regulations,

see La. Admin. Code tit. 76, § 701 (2003), affirmatively support the district

court’s finding that Pelts & Skins must pay a hunting license fee to operate its

business.

9

Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 283 F.3d 315, 319 (5th Cir. 2002); Pederson v.

La. State Univ., 213 F.3d 858, 869 (5th Cir. 2000). A finding is

clearly erroneous if a review of the evidence leaves us with a firm

conviction that the district court has made a mistake. Dickerson

ex rel. Dickerson v. United States, 280 F.3d 470, 474 (5th Cir.

2002). The absence of any evidence supporting the district court’s

finding firmly convinces us that, based on the record as it stands,

the district court has made a mistake. Cf. Walker v. U.S. Dep’t of

Hous. & Urban Dev., 99 F.3d 761, 770 (5th Cir. 1996).11 Given the

parties’ failure to contest and to address standing in the district

court, the district court’s finding is unsurprising; nevertheless,

that finding is clearly erroneous on this record.

On this record, therefore, Pelts & Skins lacks standing to

challenge expenditures from the Marketing Fund. A district court

may only remedy the injury in fact the plaintiff has established.

Lewis, 518 U.S. at 357 (1996). We therefore vacate the portion of

the injunction concerning the Marketing Fund.

When jurisdiction is not clear from the record but could

exist, we may remand to the district court so that the parties may

supplement the record. Mollett v. Penrod Drilling Co., 872 F.2d

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10

1221, 1228 (5th Cir. 1989). Remand is especially appropriate when,

as in this case, jurisdiction may hinge on a simple factual matter

that was left untested because the parties did not dispute standing

in the district court. After further review, the district court

may determine that Pelts & Skins has paid the license fee. We

therefore remand this case in part. On remand, the district court

should ascertain whether Pelts & Skins has standing to challenge

the Marketing Fund and modify the injunction accordingly.

III.

Although Pelts & Skins lacks standing to challenge use of the

Marketing Fund, it has standing to challenge use of the Resource

Fund. We therefore consider whether the use of the Resource Fund

to promote generic alligator marketing violates the First

Amendment. We review the district court’s resolution of this

constitutional question de novo. Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc.

v. City of Dallas, 295 F.3d 471, 482 (5th Cir. 2002).

A.

We first consider whether the generic alligator marketing is

government speech or private speech. The government speech

doctrine holds that “when the government appropriates public funds

to promote a particular policy of its own, it is entitled to say

what it wishes.” Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va.,

515 U.S. 819, 833 (1995). The Secretary argues that generic

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12 The Supreme Court has not determined how the government speech doctrine

applies to compelled subsidies for generic marketing. Neither of the two Supreme

Court cases addressing mandatory assessments for generic marketing considers the

question of government speech. See United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U.S.

405 (2001); Glickman v. Wileman Bros. & Elliott, Inc., 521 U.S. 457 (1997). In

United Foods, the Court intimated that the government speech doctrine might have

been applicable to the issue of compelled assessments for generic marketing but

expressly reserved this question because the argument was not raised or addressed

in the court of appeals. 533 U.S. at 416-17.

Rather, courts usually consider the government speech doctrine when

plaintiffs challenge restrictions on government-funded expression as content- or

viewpoint-discriminatory. See, e.g., Legal Servs. Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U.S.

533, 536-37 (2001) (striking down restrictions that barred government-funded

lawyers from challenging the validity of welfare statutes); Rosenberger, 515 U.S.

at 822-28 (striking down state university’s restrictions on use of student

activities funds for religious publications); Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173,

177-83 (1991) (upholding restriction that barred recipients of federal funds from

discussing abortion as a method of family planning).

 

13 Three other circuits addressed the application of the government speech

doctrine to programs similar to the generic alligator marketing program and

uniformly concluded that this type of producer-funded generic marketing is not

government speech.

The Third and Sixth Circuits relied upon two basic considerations: first,

that assessments on producers rather than general revenues funded the marketing;

11

alligator marketing is immune from First Amendment review because

the State of Louisiana is speaking.12

We disagree. Not all government-facilitated speech is

government speech. The government speech doctrine does not apply

if a program is “designed to facilitate private speech, not to

promote a governmental message.” Velazquez, 531 U.S. at 542. In

this case, three considerations--the method by which DWF funds

generic marketing, the composition and operation of the Fur and

Alligator Advisory Council, and an application of the policies

underlying the government speech doctrine--convince us that the

generic marketing at issue is not government speech, but government

facilitation of the private speech of fur and alligator

harvesters.13

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and second, that the organizations responsible for the content of the generic

marketing represented private rather than governmental interests. See Cochran,

359 F.3d at 273-74 (generic milk marketing); Mich. Pork, 348 F.3d at 161-62

(generic pork marketing); United States v. Frame, 885 F.2d 1119, 1131-33 (3d Cir.

1989) (generic beef marketing).

The Eighth Circuit declared the government speech doctrine categorically

inapplicable to compelled subsidy cases. See Livestock Mktg. Ass’n v. U.S.

Dep’t of Agric., 335 F.3d 711, 720 (8th Cir. 2003), petition for cert. filed sub.

nom. Veneman v. Livestock Mktg. Ass’n, 72 U.S.L.W. 3539 (U.S. Feb. 13, 2004) (No.

03-1164). The Supreme Court’s treatment of compelled subsidy challenges

convinces us that the government speech doctrine is at least potentially

applicable to this general category of cases. In Keller v. State Bar, the Court

invoked the government speech doctrine and analyzed whether an integrated state

bar was a government agency before turning to the question of whether bar dues

constituted an impermissible compelled subsidy for private speech. 496 U.S. 1,

10-13 (1990). In Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin System v.

Southworth, the Court considered a compelled subsidy challenge to mandatory

student fees and stated in dictum that, had the state university not denied that

the speech at issue was government speech, “the analysis likely would be

altogether different.” 529 U.S. 217, 235 (2000).

12

First, the method by which DWF funds generic alligator

marketing suggests that generic alligator advertising is the

message of fur and alligator harvesters, not Louisiana as a whole.

Government speech is typically funded from a government’s general

revenues, not assessments levied on a particular group. See

Keller, 496 U.S. at 11; Mich. Pork, 348 F.3d at 162; Frame, 885

F.2d at 1132-33. The portions of the Resource Fund administered by

the Council do not come from general state revenues; rather, they

come from fees levied on only one group: harvesters of furs and

alligators. The Resource Fund remains in an account segregated

from the State’s general revenues. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §

56:279(C)(1) (West Supp. 2004). Moreover, the expenditures

recommended, reviewed, and approved by the Council primarily

concern precisely those persons who must contribute to the Resource

Fund. This “close nexus” between the individuals who pay for the

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14 The Secretary argues that alligator marketing is government speech because

the Council’s governing statutes lay out specific goals and articulate

Louisiana’s interest in promotion of the alligator industry. See La. Rev. Stat.

Ann. §§ 56:266(B), 56:279(A) (West Supp. 2004). The fact that the government has

an interest in facilitating private speech does not convert that speech into a

governmental message. The federal government laid out similar interests in the

statutes at issue in Michigan Pork, Livestock Marketing, and Frame, but none of

those courts considered the articulation of those interests relevant. See Mich.

Pork, 348 F.3d at 159; Livestock Mktg., 335 F.3d at 713-14; Frame, 885 F.2d at

1122-23. Moreover, in Velazquez, the Court held that the legal representation

at issue was not government speech despite the fact that Congress had articulated

a governmental interest in funding legal representation for indigent litigants.

531 U.S. at 536, 541-42.

13

speech and the content of the speech suggests that Louisiana is

facilitating a private message, not expressing its own. See Frame,

885 F.2d at 1132.

Second, an organization that represents private interests, the

Council, is primarily responsible for the generic marketing

campaign. Cochran, Michigan Pork, and Frame all dealt with generic

marketing programs run by industry-specific councils. In each of

these cases, the federal agriculture secretary appointed the

members of the council based on nominations from industry

representatives. Because these councils were composed of industry

representatives, the courts determined that those councils, though

appointed by the government, represented private interests. See

Cochran, 359 F.3d at 274; Michigan Pork, 348 F.3d at 162; Frame,

885 F.3d at 1133.

Likewise, although the Council is a government creation, the

composition of the Council demonstrates that it represents

primarily private interests.14 The Secretary or his designate

serves on the Council ex officio, and he and other government

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15 In Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corp., the Supreme Court

considered whether Amtrak was “an agency or instrumentality of the United States

for the purpose of individual rights guaranteed against the Government by the

Constitution.” 513 U.S. 374, 394 (1995). Lebron, however, involved an issue

very different from the question presented in this case. In Lebron, an artist

sued to compel Amtrak to display political artwork on an Amtrak-owned billboard.

Id. at 376-78. The question was not whether Amtrak’s use of the billboard was

government speech; like a privately-owned billboard, the Amtrak billboard was

designed to facilitate promotion of private messages. Id. Rather, the question

in Lebron was whether the First Amendment placed any limitations on Amtrak’s use

of the billboard. Id. We thus consider Lebron inapplicable to the issue at

hand. Accord Cochran, 359 F.3d at 274 n.10; Livestock Mktg., 335 F.3d at 720

n.5.

 

16 To be sure, DWF could exercise limited control over the Council. Aside

from his appointment power, the Secretary also retains the power to veto the

Council’s expenditures from the Resource Fund. See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §

14

officials appoint all the remaining members of the Council, but the

Secretary does not enjoy plenary discretion to appoint any person

to the Council. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 56:266(C) (West Supp. 2004).

Rather, he must appoint a carefully calibrated “cross section of

trappers, alligator hunters, coastal landowners, and alligator

farmers.” Id. Two members of the Council must represent a private

organization, the Louisiana Farmers and Ranchers Association. Id.

The Secretary may choose all nine of the Council members he

appoints based on nominations from private organizations, id., and

the record suggests that the Secretary does so. Because

representatives of private alligator harvesters compose the heavy

majority of the Council, it naturally reflects private rather than

governmental interests.15

Furthermore, although the Secretary portrays alligator

marketing as a DWF-run program, the Council, not DWF, primarily

controls how the Resource Fund is used.16 Cf. Michigan Pork, 348

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56:279(D) (West Supp. 2004). The record, however, contains no evidence that the

Secretary has ever exercised that veto.

15

F.3d at 162. DWF cannot spend money from the Resource Fund without

the Council’s approval. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 56:279(D)(3) (West

Supp. 2004). Moreover, the record suggests that DWF’s approval of

contracts recommended by the Council is largely perfunctory. Cf.

United Foods, 533 U.S. at 416-17 (suggesting in dictum that

evidence of pro forma oversight implies that government-facilitated

generic marketing is not government speech). Our review of the

record reveals no evidence that DWF crafts or edits the content of

any of the generic marketing at issue; rather, this task falls to

private contractors hired by the Council to market alligator

products. Thus, the Council, not DWF, is primarily responsible for

generic alligator marketing.

Third, the policies underlying the government speech doctrine

do not support the application of that doctrine to this case. One

rationale for the government speech doctrine is that, without the

doctrine, “every citizen [would] have a right to insist that no one

paid by public funds express a view with which he disagreed . . .

and the process of government as we know it would be radically

transformed.” Keller, 496 U.S. at 12-13. This case, however, does

not raise the specter of lawsuit-induced paralysis. As our

discussion of standing demonstrates, only members of the narrow

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16

group compelled to contribute funds to subsidize directly a private

message have standing to challenge the expression at issue.

A second rationale for the government speech doctrine is that

“[w]hen the government speaks, for instance to promote its own

policies or to advance a particular idea, it is, in the end,

accountable to the electorate and the political process for its

advocacy.” Velazquez, 531 U.S. at 541 (quoting Southworth, 529

U.S. at 235). In contrast, the government can easily avoid

accountability when it imposes costs on a single, narrow group to

facilitate a specialized message, especially if only a small

minority of that group objects to the message expressed.

We are not dealing with a program funded from general revenues

by broadly applicable taxes. Nor are we dealing with a

governmental message crafted, controlled, and expressed by an

agency designed to represent state government. Rather, in this

case we confront a program in which the government uses its

authority to exact fees from private individuals, then facilitates

the use of those fees to express a message designed to benefit

private commercial interests. This sort of program is not

government speech.

B.

Because we have determined that use of the Resource Fund for

generic marketing represents a compelled subsidy for private

speech, we must decide whether that compulsion is nonetheless

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17

permissible. The Supreme Court has twice addressed compelled

subsidies for generic marketing. In Glickman v. Wileman Bros. &

Elliott, Inc., 521 U.S. 457 (1997), the Court upheld compelled

subsidies for generic fruit marketing. In United States v. United

Foods, Inc., 533 U.S. 405 (2001), the Court struck down compelled

subsidies for generic mushroom marketing. We must mediate between

these two contrasting precedents, or, in the words of the district

court, “determine whether Louisiana alligator producers are more

like mushroom producers than like peach producers.” Pelts & Skins,

259 F. Supp. 2d at 483.

In Glickman, the Court evaluated a New Deal-era regulatory

scheme that required producers of peaches, plums, and nectarines to

participate in “[c]ollective, rather than competitive, marketing.”

521 U.S. at 461. This collective marketing scheme “displaced

competition” by imposing uniform prices, dictating the quality and

quantity of the fruits marketed, determining the grade and size of

the fruits sold, providing for the orderly disposition of surplus,

authorizing joint research and development projects, requiring

standardized packaging, and even exempting affected producers from

antitrust laws. Id. As part of this displacement of competition,

the government required producers to pay for generic marketing of

the fruit. Id. A group of growers alleged that the assessments

violated the First Amendment. The Court upheld the assessments

only after “stress[ing] the importance of the statutory context.”

 Case: 03-30523 Document: 0051388838 Page: 17 Date Filed: 04/02/2004
18

Id. at 469. Because the growers were part of a “broader collective

enterprise in which their freedom to act independently [was]

already constrained by the regulatory scheme,” the Court

characterized the assessments for generic marketing as “a species

of economic regulation that should enjoy the same strong

presumption of validity that we accord to other policy judgments

made by Congress.” Id. at 477.

Later, in United Foods, mushroom handlers refused to pay

mandatory assessments to fund generic mushroom marketing. 533 U.S.

at 408-09. The Court struck down the assessments as violations of

the handlers’ First Amendment right not to subsidize speech with

which they disagreed. Id. at 409. Unlike the program in Glickman,

the Court reasoned, the mushroom program was not “ancillary to a

more comprehensive program restricting marketing autonomy.” Id. at

411. Rather, the generic mushroom advertising, “far from being

ancillary, [was] the principal object of the regulatory scheme.”

Id. at 411-12. The Court summarized its compelled subsidy cases

and enunciated a guiding principle: When the government binds

individuals into a collective association, the government can also

require that those persons subsidize speech germane to the purpose

underlying the association. United Foods, 533 U.S. at 413-15; see

also Keller, 496 U.S. at 13-14 (integrated bar); Abood v. Detroit

Bd. of Educ., 431 U.S. 209, 235-36 (1977) (closed union shop).

Because the mushroom program did not require association except to

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17 Abood and Keller allow compelled subsidies for speech that is germane to

a lawfully compelled collective association. Abood, 431 U.S. at 235-36; Keller,

496 U.S. at 14. In this case there is no underlying association to which the

generic marketing could be germane. Therefore, we need not determine whether

generic marketing is germane to Louisiana’s other alligator-related regulations.

19

support generic marketing, the program violated the First

Amendment. United Foods, 533 U.S. at 415-16.

We agree with the district court that Louisiana’s generic

alligator marketing program more closely resembles the mushroom

program at issue in United Foods than the fruit program at issue in

Glickman. The Glickman rule permitting compelled subsidies applies

when individuals have been “bound together” in a collective.

United Foods, 533 U.S. at 412; accord Cochran, 359 F.3d at 275;

Delano Farms Co. v. Cal. Table Grape Comm’n, 318 F.3d 895, 898-99

(9th Cir. 2003) (striking down compelled subsidies for generic

grape marketing). Without an underlying collectivized association,

a state cannot justify a compelled subsidy. See United Foods, 533

U.S. at 413-15. Louisiana alligator producers are not part of a

collective association akin to Glickman’s marketing cooperative.

None of the laws governing alligator production imposes collective

rather than competitive marketing as the scheme in Glickman did.

Cf. Cochran, 359 F.3d at 275. Rather, as the Secretary admits, the

State of Louisiana does not regulate prices in the alligator

market, and alligator harvesters are free to negotiate prices and

to market products as they wish.17

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18 The Secretary also seeks to distinguish United Foods and its progeny by

pointing out that those cases involved privately-owned commodities, whereas

alligators are the property of the State of Louisiana. La. Civ. Code Ann. art.

3413 (West 1994). However, this case does not involve the marketing of live wild

alligators, but the marketing of products made from lawfully captured and

enclosed alligators, which are private property. See id. arts. 3413, 3415.

 

19 In Glickman, the Court identified three ways in which the regulatory scheme

at issue was different from laws found to abridge the First Amendment: (1) the

assessments did not bar producers from communicating their own messages; (2) the

assessments did not compel the producers to engage in any actual or symbolic

speech; and (3) the assessments did not compel endorsement of any political or

ideological views. 521 U.S. at 469. The Secretary urges us to consider these

20

The Secretary emphasizes Louisiana’s extensive regulation of

alligator harvesting and argues that generic alligator marketing,

like generic peach marketing, is permissible because it is

ancillary to Louisiana’s alligator regulations.18 Regulations alone

do not create compelled association. See Cochran, 359 F.3d at 275;

Delano Farms, 318 F.3d at 899. In Glickman, the fruit producers

were subject to a specific type of regulation: a scheme that

displaced individual marketing efforts and thus necessitated

collective generic marketing. See 521 U.S. at 461. Likewise, in

Keller and Abood, the state required that individuals join a

collective interest group; to be effective, that interest group had

to speak on behalf of its members on certain issues. See Keller,

496 U.S. at 14-15; Abood, 431 U.S. at 220-23. A number of

interdependent state, federal, and international laws impose

requirements on alligator harvesters, but these laws do not require

collective association, and “it is only the overriding

associational purpose which allows compelled subsidy for speech in

the first place.” United Foods, 533 U.S. at 413 (emphasis added).19

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factors. However, “[t]hese points were noted in Glickman in the context of a

different type of regulatory scheme and are not controlling of the outcome.”

United Foods, 533 U.S. at 411. The Court in United Foods was especially careful

to emphasize that the non-political, non-ideological nature of the generic

marketing was irrelevant. Id. at 410-11. Because the compelled subsidies in

this case are materially distinct from the collective marketing scheme at issue

in Glickman, these three factors are irrelevant to this case.

 

20 The Secretary observed at oral argument that, in other compelled subsidy

cases, courts have struck down entire marketing programs and invalidated the

collection of assessments. E.g., United Foods, 533 U.S. at 408-09; Cochran, 359

F.3d at 280; Mich. Pork, 348 F.3d at 159; Livestock Mktg., 335 F.3d at 713;

Delano Farms, 318 F.3d at 897. In contrast, Pelts & Skins does not seek to stop

paying alligator-related fees, but instead challenges only the use of those fees.

21

We recognize that, unlike the assessments at issue in United

Foods, Cochran, and Delano Farms, a majority of the alligatorrelated assessments fund programs other than generic marketing.

See United Foods, 533 U.S. at 411-12, 415; Cochran, 359 F.3d at

276; Delano Farms, 318 F.3d at 899. In each of the past several

years, the Council has spent approximately 15% of the Resource Fund

on generic marketing and the remainder on research and law

enforcement. This distinction in the percentage of fees that go to

generic marketing does not support applying Glickman to this case.

The key element of Glickman--a highly collectivized marketing

association--is still absent. The common thread uniting Abood,

Keller, Glickman, and United Foods is that compelled subsidization

of speech is permissible when individuals have been bound into a

collective association. United Foods, 533 U.S. at 413-15. The

fees imposed here, though used for more than generic marketing,

represent a collective association only in the loosest sense of

that term.20

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The Secretary argues that the limited nature of this challenge proves that

generic marketing is concomitant to other programs supported by the Resource

Fund. Although generic marketing might be one of a number of alligator-related

programs, it is not ancillary to any associational regulatory scheme, much less

the type of marketing collective at issue in Glickman.

 

21 The Secretary contends that, even if the alligator marketing program

burdens First Amendment rights, that program survives constitutional review under

the test for restrictions on non-misleading commercial speech enunciated in

Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557,

566 (1980).

United Foods did not explain if or how the Central Hudson test applies to

compelled subsidy cases, see 533 U.S. at 410, and other circuits have diverged

on this question, compare Mich. Pork, 348 F.3d at 163 (refusing to apply Central

Hudson test to compelled subsidy for generic pork marketing), with Livestock

Mktg., 335 F.3d at 722-726 (adapting Central Hudson test to compelled subsidy for

generic beef marketing).

We doubt that the Central Hudson test applies. See Glickman, 521 U.S. at

474 n.18 (questioning in dictum “why the Central Hudson test, which involved a

restriction on commercial speech, should govern a case involving the compelled

funding of speech”). Like the Third Circuit, however, we choose to leave this

question open because even were we to apply the Central Hudson test, Louisiana’s

alligator marketing program would not pass it. See Cochran, 359 F.3d at 277-80.

To pass this test, a restriction on commercial speech must directly advance a

substantial government interest and burden First Amendment rights no more than

necessary to accomplish that interest. Central Hudson, 447 U.S. at 566. Even

granting arguendo that Louisiana has a substantial interest in conservation and

that the message expressed by the Council’s generic marketing helps advance that

interest, Louisiana’s program burdens First Amendment speech more than necessary.

Louisiana does not need to compel alligator harvesters to support generic

marketing, but could simply fund generic marketing from its general tax revenues.

22

In sum, Louisiana’s alligator regulations are more analogous

to the mushroom marketing program in United Foods than to the fruit

marketing collective in Glickman. The use of mandatory fees for

generic marketing is not ancillary to a government-imposed

collective association. Louisiana’s use of the Resource Fund to

support generic marketing therefore violates the First Amendment.21

IV.

As the record stands, Pelts & Skins has not proven that it has

standing to challenge use of the Marketing Fund. Therefore, we

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23

vacate the portion of the injunction barring Louisiana from using

the Marketing Fund to support generic alligator marketing and

remand so that the district court may determine whether Pelts &

Skins has standing and modify the injunction accordingly.

With regard to the remaining challenge, we conclude that

Louisiana’s use of the Resource Fund to support generic marketing

violates the First Amendment. We therefore affirm the district

court’s judgment granting a permanent injunction against use of the

Resource Fund for generic alligator marketing.

AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED in part.

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