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Page Number: 34.0

4 

BARR v. AMERICAN ASSN. OF POLITICAL  
CONSULTANTS, INC. 
Opinion of BREYER, J. 

It is thus no surprise that our First Amendment jurispru-
dence  has  long  reflected  these  core  values.  This  Court’s
cases have provided heightened judicial protection for polit-
ical speech, public forums, and the expression of all view-
points  on  any  given  issue.  See,  e.g.,  Buckley  v.  American 
Constitutional  Law  Foundation,  Inc.,  525  U. S.  182,  186– 
187  (1999)  (heightened  protection  for  “core  political 
speech”); Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 
515 U. S. 819, 829–830 (1995) (government discrimination
on basis of “particular views taken by speakers on a subject”
presumptively unconstitutional);  Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 
312,  321  (1988)  (“content-based  restriction[s]  on  political
speech  in  a  public  forum”  subject  to  “most  exacting  scru-
tiny” (emphasis deleted)); Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Ed-
ucators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45–46 (1983) (content-based ex-
clusions in public forums subject to strict scrutiny).  These 
cases  reflect  the  straightforward  principle  that  “govern-
ments must not be allowed to choose which issues are worth 
discussing or debating.”  Reed, 576 U. S., at 182 (KAGAN, J., 
concurring  in  judgment)  (internal  quotation  marks  omit-
ted).

From a democratic perspective, however, it is equally im-
portant that courts not use the First Amendment in a way
that  would  threaten  the  workings  of  ordinary  regulatory 
programs  posing  little  threat  to  the  free  marketplace  of 
ideas enacted as result of that public discourse.  As a gen-
eral  matter,  the  strictest  scrutiny  should  not  apply  indis-
criminately to the very “political and social changes desired 
by  the  people”—that  is,  to  those  government  programs
which the “unfettered interchange of ideas” has sought to 
achieve.  Meyer, 486 U. S., at 421 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).  Otherwise, our democratic system would fail, not
through the inability of the people to speak or to transmit 
their views to government, but because of an elected gov-
ernment’s inability to translate those views into action. 

Thus, once again, it is not surprising that this Court has