Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1702_h315.pdf
Page Number: 28.0

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

corporate  franchises,  contracts  or  obligations”  as  taxable 
property).    And  it  is  hardly  unprecedented  for  a  govern-
ment  to  receive  a  right  to  transmit  something  over  a  pri-
vate  entity’s  infrastructure  in  exchange  for  conferring 
something  of  value  on  that  private  entity;  examples  go 
back at least as far as the 1800s.5 
  I  do  not  suggest  that  the  government  always  obtains  a 
property  interest  in  public-access  channels  created  by 
franchise  agreements.    But  the  arrangement  here  is  con-
sistent with  what  the Court would treat  as  a  governmen-
tal  property  interest  in  other  contexts.    New  York  City 
gave Time Warner the right to lay wires and sell cable TV.  
In  exchange,  the  City  received  an  exclusive  right  to  send 
its  own  signal  over  Time  Warner’s  infrastructure—no 
different  than  receiving  a  right  to  place  ads  on  another’s 
billboards.    Those  rights  amount  to  a  governmental  prop-
erty interest in the channels, and that property interest is 
clearly “consistent with the communicative purpose of the 
forum,” Denver Area, 518 U. S., at 829 (opinion of THOMAS, 
J.).  Indeed, it is the right to transmit the very content to 
which  New  York  law  grants  the  public  open  and  equal 
access. 

2 
  With  the  question  of  a  governmental  property  interest 
resolved,  it  should  become  clear  that  the  public-access 
channels are a public forum.6  Outside of classic examples 

—————— 

5 For  example,  during  the  railroad  boom,  governments  obtained  not 
only physical easements in favor of the public over tracks used, owned, 
and managed by private railroads, including rights to use the rails and 
all  relevant  “fixtures  and  appurtenances,”  see,  e.g.,  Lake  Superior  & 
Mississippi R. Co. v. United  States, 93 U. S. 442, 444, 453–454 (1877), 
but also, in some situations, rights to transmit personnel and freight for 
free or at reduced rates, Ellis, Railroad Land Grant Rates, 1850–1945, 
21 J. Land & P. U. Econ. 207, 209, 211–212 (1945). 

6 Though  the  majority  disagrees  on  the  property  question,  I  do  not 
take  it  seriously  to  dispute  that  this  point  would  follow.    See  ante,  at