Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-10_21p3.pdf
Page Number: 23

Cite as:  570 U. S. ____ (2013) 

5 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

infringe  the  right.”  461  U. S.,  at  549.    Today’s  opinion, 
ante,  at  9,  stresses  the  fact  that  these  nonprofits  were 
permitted  to  use  a  separate  §501(c)(4)  affiliate  for  their 
lobbying—but  that  fact,  alluded  to  in  a  footnote,  Regan, 
461  U. S.,  at  545,  n. 6,  was  entirely  nonessential  to  the 
Court’s  holding.    Indeed,  that  rationale  prompted  a  sepa-
rate  concurrence  precisely  because  the  majority  of  the
Court did not rely upon it.  See id., at 551–554 (Blackmun, 
J., concurring).  As for FCC v. League of Women Voters of 
Cal.,  468  U. S.  364  (1984),  the  ban  on  editorializing  at 
issue  there  was  disallowed  precisely  because  it  did  not 
further a relevant, permissible policy of the Federal Com-
munications  Act—and  indeed  was  simply  incompatible
with the Act’s “affirmativ[e] encourage[ment]” of the “vig-
orous  expression  of  controversial  opinions”  by  licensed 
broadcasters.  Id., at 397. 

The  Court  makes  a  head-fake  at  the  unconstitutional 
conditions  doctrine,  ante,  at  12,  but  that  doctrine  is  of  no 
help.  There is no case of ours in which a condition that is 
relevant  to  a  statute’s  valid  purpose  and  that  is  not  in
itself unconstitutional (e.g., a religious-affiliation condition
that  violates  the  Establishment  Clause)  has  been  held  to 
violate the doctrine.*  Moreover, as I suggested earlier, the
contention  that  the  condition  here  “coerces”  respondents’ 
speech is on its face implausible.  Those organizations that
wish  to  take  a  different  tack  with  respect  to  prostitution
“are as unconstrained now as they were before the enact-
ment  of  [the  Leadership  Act].”  National  Endowment  for 
Arts  v.  Finley,  524  U. S.  569,  595  (1998)  (SCALIA,  J.,  con-
curring in judgment).  As the Court acknowledges, “[a]s a 
general  matter,  if  a  party  objects  to  a  condition  on  the 
—————— 

* In  Legal  Services  Corporation  v.  Velazquez,  531  U. S.  533  (2001),
upon which the Court relies, the opinion specified that “in the context of 
this statute there is no programmatic message of the kind recognized in 
Rust  and  which  sufficed  there  to  allow  the  Government  to  specify  the 
advice deemed necessary for its legitimate objectives,” id., at 548.