Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 916.0

529US3

Unit: $U60

[09-26-01 12:39:04] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 803 (2000)

841

Breyer, J., dissenting

The words I have just emphasized, “similarly” and “effec-
In an appropriate case they ask a judge
tive,” are critical.
not to apply First Amendment rules mechanically, but to de-
cide whether, in light of the beneﬁts and potential alterna-
tives, the statute works speech-related harm (here to adult
speech) out of proportion to the beneﬁts that the statute
seeks to provide (here, child protection).

These words imply a degree of leeway, however small, for
the Legislature when it chooses among possible alternatives
in light of predicted comparative effects. Without some
such empirical leeway, the undoubted ability of lawyers and
judges to imagine some kind of slightly less drastic or re-
strictive an approach would make it impossible to write laws
that deal with the harm that called the statute into being.
As Justice Blackmun pointed out, a “judge would be unimag-
inative indeed if he could not come up with something a little
less ‘drastic’ or a little less ‘restrictive’ in almost any situa-
tion, and thereby enable himself to vote to strike legisla-
tion down.”
Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers
Party, 440 U. S. 173, 188–189 (1979) (concurring opinion).
Used without a sense of the practical choices that face legis-
latures, “the test merely announces an inevitable [negative]
result, and the test is no test at all.”

Id., at 188.

The majority, in describing First Amendment jurispru-
dence, scarcely mentions the words “at least as effective”—
a rather surprising omission since they happen to be what
this case is all about. But the majority does refer to Reno’s
understanding of less restrictive alternatives, ante, at 813,
and it addresses the Government’s effectiveness arguments,
ante, at 823–826.
I therefore assume it continues to recog-
nize their role as part of the test that it enunciates.

I turn then to the major point of disagreement. Unlike
the majority, I believe the record makes clear that § 504’s
opt-out is not a similarly effective alternative. Section 504
(opt-out) and § 505 (opt-in) work differently in order to
achieve very different legislative objectives. Section 504