Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 386.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 277 (2000)

311

Opinion of Souter, J.

cient evidentiary showing to sustain its regulation, and I
would therefore vacate the decision of the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court and remand the case for further proceedings.

I

In several recent cases, we have confronted the need for
factual justiﬁcations to satisfy intermediate scrutiny under
the First Amendment. See, e. g., Nixon v. Shrink Missouri
Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377 (2000); Turner Broadcasting
System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U. S. 180 (1997) (Turner II); Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622 (1994)
(Turner I). Those cases do not identify with any speciﬁcity
a particular quantum of evidence, nor do I seek to do so in
this brief concurrence.1 What the cases do make plain, how-
ever, is that application of an intermediate scrutiny test to a
government’s asserted rationale for regulation of expressive
activity demands some factual justiﬁcation to connect that
rationale with the regulation in issue.

1 As explained below, infra, at 316, the issue of evidentiary justiﬁcation
was never joined, and with a multiplicity of factors affecting the analysis,
a general formulation of the quantum required under United States v.
O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), will at best be difﬁcult. A lesser showing
may sufﬁce when the means-end ﬁt is evident to the untutored intuition.
As we said in Nixon, “The quantum of empirical evidence needed to sat-
isfy heightened judicial scrutiny of legislative judgments will vary up or
down with the novelty and plausibility of the justiﬁcation raised.” 528
U. S., at 391.
(In O’Brien, for example, the secondary effects that the
Government identiﬁed ﬂowed from the destruction of draft cards, and
there could be no doubt that a regulation prohibiting that destruction
would alleviate the concomitant harm.) The nature of the legislating in-
stitution might also affect the calculus. We do not require Congress to
create a record in the manner of an administrative agency, see Turner II,
520 U. S. 180, 213 (1997), and we accord its ﬁndings greater respect than
those of agencies. See id., at 195. We might likewise defer less to a
city council than we would to Congress. The need for evidence may be
especially acute when a regulation is content based on its face and is ana-
lyzed as content neutral only because of the secondary effects doctrine.
And it may be greater when the regulation takes the form of a ban, rather
than a time, place, or manner restriction.