Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-177_b97c.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

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AGENCY FOR INT’L DEVELOPMENT v. ALLIANCE FOR 
OPEN SOCIETY INT’L, INC. 
BREYER, J., dissenting 

U. S. 47, 61 (2006) (FAIR)); see also, e.g., West Virginia Bd. 
of  Ed.  v.  Barnette,  319  U. S.  624,  642  (1943);  Wooley  v. 
Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 717 (1977).

That the Policy Requirement is a funding condition, ra-
ther  than  a  direct  command,  complicated  the  analysis  in 
AOSI I  but  did  not  change  the  outcome.    True,  Congress’
Article I spending power “includes the authority to impose 
limits on the use of [federal] funds to ensure they are used”
as “Congress intends,” even conditions that “may affect the
recipient’s exercise of its First Amendment rights.”  AOSI I, 
570  U. S.,  at  213–214.    That  is  all  the  first  (and  unchal-
lenged) Leadership Act condition does by forbidding federal
funds from being used to promote prostitution or sex traf-
ficking.  See id., at 217–218.  Congress may not, however,
“leverage funding to regulate speech outside the contours”
of the program it has chosen to subsidize.  Id., at 214–215. 
That, as we will see, is what the Policy Requirement does—
and why we held in AOSI I that this second condition vio-
lated respondents’ First Amendment rights.

The  constitutional  line  is  whether  a  funding  condition
helps “specify the activities Congress wants to subsidize” or
instead  seeks  to  “reach  [speech]  outside”  the  federal  pro-
gram.  Id., at 214, 217.  We recognized in AOSI I that this 
line “is not always self-evident.”  Id., at 217.  To “hel[p] il-
lustrate  the  distinction,”  our  decision  gave  two  examples 
from our precedents.  Id., at 215. 

As an example of what the Government may not do, we 
pointed to our decision FCC v. League of Women Voters of 
Cal., 468 U. S. 364 (1984).  There, the Government required
noncommercial broadcasters receiving federal financial as-
sistance  to  refrain  from  editorializing  entirely;  they  could 
not even “establish [an] ‘affiliate’ organizatio[n]” to editori-
alize on their behalf “with nonfederal funds.”  Id., at 400. 
By giving a broadcaster no way “to make known its views 
on matters of public importance,” the funding condition in 
League  of  Women  Voters  violated  the  First  Amendment.