Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/544/550
Timestamp: 2020-08-12 22:10:03
Document Index: 485006211

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2901', '§ 2903', '§ 2904', '§ 2904', '§ 2904', '§ 2904', '§ 1260', '§ 1260', '§ 2', '§ 1260', '§ 2903', '§ 2902', '§ 1260', '§ 2901', '§ 2904', '§ 1260', '§ 9', '§ 2904', '§ 1260', '§ 1205', '§ 1207', '§ 1210', '§ 1215', '§ 1216', '§ 1218', '§ 1219', '§ 1220', '§ 1230', '§ 1240', '§ 1250', '§ 1280', '§ 2906', '§ 2901', '§ 57']

JOHANNS, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, ET AL. v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSOCIATION ET AL. | Supreme Court | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Decided May 23, 2005.*
(b) Respondents argue that the speech here is not government speech because it is controlled by nongovernmental entities, i. e., the Beef Board and Operating Committee. In fact, the message is effectively controlled by the Federal Government. Congress and the Secretary have set out the overarching message and some of the campaign's elements, and have left the development of the remaining details to the Operating Committee, half of whose members are appointed by the Secretary and all of whom are subject to removal by the Secretary. The Secretary also has final approval authority over every word in every promotional campaign, and his subordinates attend and participate in meetings at which proposals are developed. By contrast, in Keller the compelled subsidy funded communicative activities that were not prescribed by law or developed under official government supervision. Nor does the Order's funding mechanism affect the compelled-subsidy analysis. That citizens have no First Amendment right not to fund government speech is no less true when, as here, the funding is achieved through targeted assessments devoted to a program to which some assessed citizens object, rather than through general taxes. The Court need not address respondents' argument that the advertisements, most of which are credited to "America's Beef Producers," give the impression that respondents endorse their message. Neither the Beef Act nor the Order requires attribution of the ads to "America's Beef Producers" or to anyone else, so neither can be facially invalid on this theory, and the record contains no evidence from which to conclude that the ads' message would be associated with respondents. Pp. 560-567.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the federal petitioners in No. 03-1164. With him on the briefs in both cases were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Irving L. Gornstein, Douglas N. Letter, and Matthew M. Collette.
Laurence H. Tribe argued the cause for respondents in both cases. With him on the brief were Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, Philip Olsson, Ronald A. Parsons, Jr., and Scott N. Heidepriem.†
The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 (Beef Act or Act), 99 Stat. 1597, announces a federal policy of promoting the marketing and consumption of "beef and beef products," using funds raised by an assessment on cattle sales and importation. 7 U.S. C. § 2901(b). The statute directs the Secretary of Agriculture to implement this policy by issuing a Beef Promotion and Research Order (Beef Order or Order), § 2903, and specifies four key terms it must contain: The Secretary is to appoint a Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board (Beef Board or Board), whose members are to be a geographically representative group of beef producers and importers, nominated by trade associations. § 2904(1). The Beef Board is to convene an Operating Committee, composed of 10 Beef Board members and 10 representatives named by a federation of state beef councils. § 2904(4)(A). The Secretary is to impose a $1-per-head assessment (or "checkoff") on all sales or importation of cattle and a comparable assessment on imported beef products. § 2904(8). And the assessment is to be used to fund beef-related projects, including promotional campaigns, designed by the Operating Committee and approved by the Secretary. §§ 2904(4)(B), (C).
The Secretary promulgated the Beef Order with the specified terms. The assessment is collected primarily by state beef councils, which then forward the proceeds to the Beef Board. 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(5) (2004).1 The Operating Committee proposes projects to be funded by the checkoff including promotion and research. § 1260.167(a). The Secretary or his designee (see §§ 2.22(a)(1)(viii)(X), 2.79(a)(8)(xxxii)) approves each project and, in the case of promotional materials, the content of each communication. §§ 1260.168(e), 1260.169; App. 114, 143.
The Beef Order was promulgated in 1986 on a temporary basis, subject to a referendum among beef producers on whether to make it permanent. 7 U. S. C. §§ 2903, 2906(a). In May 1988, a large majority voted to continue it. Since that time, more than $1 billion has been collected through the checkoff, 132 F. Supp. 2d 817, 820 (SD 2001), and a large fraction of that sum has been spent on promotional projects authorized by the Beef Act—many using the familiar trademarked slogan "Beef. It's What's for Dinner." App. 50. In fiscal year 2000, for example, the Beef Board collected over $48 million in assessments and spent over $29 million on domestic promotion. The Board also funds overseas marketing efforts; market and food-science research, such as evaluations of the nutritional value of beef; and informational campaigns for both consumers and beef producers. See 7 U. S. C. §§ 2902(6), (9), (15), 2904(4)(B).
Respondents are two associations whose members collect and pay the checkoff, and several individuals who raise and sell cattle subject to the checkoff. Id., at 17-19. They sued the Secretary, the Department of Agriculture, and the Board in Federal District Court on a number of constitutional and statutory grounds not before us—in particular, that the Board impermissibly used checkoff funds to send communications supportive of the beef program to beef producers. 132 F. Supp. 2d, at 823. Petitioners in No. 03-1165, a state beef producers' association and two individual producers, intervened as defendants to argue in support of the program. The District Court granted a limited preliminary injunction, which forbade the continued use of checkoff funds to laud the beef program or to lobby for governmental action relating to the checkoff. Id., at 832.
These latter cases led us to sustain a compelled-subsidy challenge to an assessment very similar to the beef checkoff, imposed to fund mushroom advertising. United Foods, supra; see 335 F. 3d, at 717 ("[W]e agree with the district court that `[t]he beef checkoff is, in all material respects, identical to the mushroom checkoff'" at issue in United Foods). Deciding the case on the assumption that the advertising was private speech, not government speech, see 533 U. S., at 416-417,3 we concluded that Abood and Keller were controlling. As in those cases, mushroom producers were obliged by "law or necessity" to pay the checkoff; although Abood and Keller would permit the mandatory fee if it were "germane" to a "broader regulatory scheme," in United Foods the only regulatory purpose was the funding of the advertising. 533 U. S., at 413, 415-416.
In all of the cases invalidating exactions to subsidize speech, the speech was, or was presumed to be, that of an entity other than the government itself. See Keller, supra, at 11, 15-16; Abood, supra, at 212-213; United Foods, supra, at 416-417; see also Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 229, 230 (2000) (because "[t]he University ha[s] disclaimed that the speech is its own," Abood and Keller "provide the beginning point for our analysis"); cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 851-852 (1995) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) (university's Student Activities Fund likely does not unconstitutionally compel speech because it "represents not government resources . . . but a fund that simply belongs to the students"). Our compelled-subsidy cases have consistently respected the principle that "[c]ompelled support of a private association is fundamentally different from compelled support of government." Abood, supra, at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). "Compelled support of government" — even those programs of government one does not approve—is of course perfectly constitutional, as every taxpayer must attest. And some government programs involve, or entirely consist of, advocating a position. "The government, as a general rule, may support valid programs and policies by taxes or other exactions binding on protesting parties. Within this broader principle it seems inevitable that funds raised by the government will be spent for speech and other expression to advocate and defend its own policies." Southworth, 529 U. S., at 229. We have generally assumed, though not yet squarely held, that compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise First Amendment concerns. See ibid.; Keller, supra, at 12-13; Rosenberger, supra, at 833; see also Wooley, 430 U. S., at 721 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting).
* The Secretary of Agriculture does not write ad copy himself. Rather, the Beef Board's promotional campaigns are designed by the Beef Board's Operating Committee, only half of whose members are Beef Board members appointed by the Secretary. (All members of the Operating Committee are subject to removal by the Secretary. 7 CFR § 1260.213 (2004).) Respondents contend that speech whose content is effectively controlled by a nongovernmental entity—the Operating Committee—cannot be considered "government speech." We need not address this contention, because we reject its premise: The message of the promotional campaigns is effectively controlled by the Federal Government itself.4
The message set out in the beef promotions is from beginning to end the message established by the Federal Government.5 Congress has directed the implementation of a "coordinated program" of promotion, "including paid advertising, to advance the image and desirability of beef and beef products." 7 U. S. C. §§ 2901(b), 2902(13). Congress and the Secretary have also specified, in general terms, what the promotional campaigns shall contain, see, e. g., § 2904(4)(B)(i) (campaigns "shall . . . take into account" different types of beef products), and what they shall not, see, e. g., 7 CFR § 1260.169(d) (2004) (campaigns shall not, without prior approval, refer "to a brand or trade name of any beef product"). Thus, Congress and the Secretary have set out the overarching message and some of its elements, and they have left the development of the remaining details to an entity whose members are answerable to the Secretary (and in some cases appointed by him as well).
We reject the first point. The compelled-subsidy analysis is altogether unaffected by whether the funds for the promotions are raised by general taxes or through a targeted assessment. Citizens may challenge compelled support of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund government speech. And that is no less true when the funding is achieved through targeted assessments devoted exclusively to the program to which the assessed citizens object. Cf. United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 260 (1982) ("There is no principled way . . . to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act" in evaluating the burden on the right to free exercise of religion). The First Amendment does not confer a right to pay one's taxes into the general fund, because the injury of compelled funding (as opposed to the injury of compelled speech) does not stem from the Government's mode of accounting. Cf. Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 700 (1986) ("The Free Exercise Clause . . . does not afford an individual a right to dictate the conduct of the Government's internal procedures"); id., at 716-717 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in result).
Some of our cases have justified compelled funding of government speech by pointing out that government speech is subject to democratic accountability. See, e. g., Abood, 431 U. S., at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); Southworth, 529 U. S., at 235. But our references to "traditional political controls," id., at 229, do not signify that the First Amendment duplicates the Appropriations Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, or that every instance of government speech must be funded by a line item in an appropriations bill. Here, the beef advertisements are subject to political safeguards more than adequate to set them apart from private messages. The program is authorized and the basic message prescribed by federal statute, and specific requirements for the promotions' content are imposed by federal regulations promulgated after notice and comment. The Secretary of Agriculture, a politically accountable official, oversees the program, appoints and dismisses the key personnel, and retains absolute veto power over the advertisements' content, right down to the wording.6 And Congress, of course, retains oversight authority, not to mention the ability to reform the program at any time. No more is required.7
We need not determine the validity of this argument— which relates to compelled speech rather than compelled subsidy8 — with regard to respondents' facial challenge. Since neither the Beef Act nor the Beef Order requires attribution, neither can be the cause of any possible First Amendment harm. The District Court's order enjoining the enforcement of the Act and the Order thus cannot be sustained on this theory.
On some set of facts, this second theory might (again, we express no view on the point) form the basis for an as-applied challenge—if it were established, that is, that individual beef advertisements were attributed to respondents. The record, however, includes only a stipulated sampling of these promotional materials, see App. 47, and none of the exemplars provides any support for this attribution theory except for the tagline identifying the funding. Respondents apparently presented no other evidence of attribution at trial, and the District Court made no factual findings on the point. Indeed, in the only trial testimony on the subject that any party has identified, an employee of one of the respondent associations said he did not think the beef promotions would be attributed to his group.9 Whether the individual respondents who are beef producers would be associated with speech labeled as coming from "America's Beef Producers" is a question on which the trial record is altogether silent. We have only the funding tagline itself, a trademarked term10 that, standing alone, is not sufficiently specific to convince a reasonable factfinder that any particular beef producer, or all beef producers, would be tarred with the content of each trademarked ad.11 We therefore conclude that on the record before us an as-applied First Amendment challenge to the individual advertisements affords no basis on which to sustain the Eighth Circuit's judgment, even in part.
Together with No. 03-1165,Nebraska Cattlemen, Inc., et al. v. Livestock Marketing Association et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
&#x2020; Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both cases were filed for the State of California by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Richard M. Frank, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Linda L. Berg, Deputy Attorney General; for the State of Texas et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General, Rance L. Craft, Assistant Solicitor General, Barry R. McBee, First Assistant Attorney General, and Edward D. Burbach, Deputy Attorney General, by William Vázquez Irizarry, Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky, Charles C. Foti, Jr., of Louisiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Patricia A. Madrid of New Mexico, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Jim Petro of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Gerald J. Pappert of Pennsylvania, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, Peggy A. Lautenschlager of Wisconsin, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; for the American Cotton Shippers Association et al. by Walter Dellinger and Pamela Harris; for the California Agricultural Issues Forum by Seth P. Waxman, Randolph D. Moss, Todd Zubler, and Brian M. Boynton; for the Michigan Pork Producers Association, Inc., et al. by Edward M. Mansfield; for Thad Cochran et al. by David A. Bono and Gerald P. Norton; and for 113 Agricultural Industry Associations by Charles L. Babcock and David T. Moran.
In most cases, only 50 cents per head is remitted to the Beef Board, because the Beef Act and Beef Order allow domestic producers to deduct from their $1 assessment up to 50 cents in voluntary contributions to their state beef councils. 7 U. S. C. § 2904(8)(C); 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(3) (2004)
The Department of Agriculture oversees similar programs of promotional advertising, funded by checkoffs, for a number of other agricultural commodities. See 7 CFR § 1205.10et seq. (2004) (cotton); § 1207.301 et seq. (potatoes); § 1210.301 et seq. (watermelons); § 1215.1 et seq. (popcorn); § 1216.1 et seq. (peanuts); § 1218.1 et seq. (blueberries); § 1219.1 et seq. (Hass avocados); § 1220.101 et seq. (soybeans); § 1230.1 et seq. (pork); § 1240.1 et seq. (honey); § 1250.301 et seq. (eggs); § 1280.101 et seq. (lamb).
InUnited Foods, the Court distinguished (and the dissent relied on) Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), which upheld the use of mandatory assessments to fund generic advertising promoting California tree fruit. In Glickman, as in United Foods, the Government did not argue that the advertising was permissible government speech. See 521 U. S., at 482, n. 2 (SOUTER, J., dissenting) (noting that the Government had waived any such argument). Rather, the Government contended, and we agreed, that compelled support for generic advertising was legitimately part of the Government's "collectivist" centralization of the market for tree fruit. Id., at 475 (opinion of the Court). Here, as in United Foods, "there is no broader regulatory system in place" that collectivizes aspects of the beef market unrelated to speech, so Glickman is not controlling. 533 U. S., at 415.
We therefore need not label the Operating Committee as "governmental" or "nongovernmental." The entity to which assessments are remitted is the Beef Board, all of whose members are appointed by the Secretary pursuant to law. The Operating Committee's only relevant involvement is ancillary—it designs the promotional campaigns, which the Secretary supervises and approves—and its status as a state actor thus is not directly at issue
The principal dissent suggests that if this is so, then the Government has adopted at best a mixed message, because it also promulgates dietary guidelines that, if followed, would discourage excessive consumption of beefPost, at 577, n. 5 (opinion of SOUTER, J.); see also post, at 569-570 (GINSBURG, J., concurring in judgment). Even if we agreed that the protection of the government-speech doctrine must be forfeited whenever there is inconsistency in the message, we would nonetheless accord the protection here. The beef promotions are perfectly compatible with the guidelines' message of moderate consumption—the ads do not insist that beef is also What's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Midnight Snack.
Congress also required a referendum among producers before permanently implementing the checkoff, and allowed the Secretary to call another referendum upon demand of a "representative group" comprising 10 percent of cattle producers. 7 U. S. C. §§ 2906(a)-(b). Even before they amended their complaint to challenge the checkoff as compelled speech, respondents were seeking in this litigation to force such a referendum. See 207 F. Supp. 2d 992, 995 (SD 2002)
The principal dissent finds some "First Amendment affront" in all compelled funding of government speech—and when, it says, "a targeted assessment . . . makes the First Amendment affront more galling, . . . greater care is required to assure that the political process can practically respond to limit the compulsion."Post, at 576. That greater care consists, the dissent says, of a requirement that government speech funded by a targeted assessment must identify government as the speaker. Post, at 576-578. The dissent cites no prior practice, no precedent, and no authority for this highly refined elaboration—not even anyone who has ever before thought of it. It is more than we think can be found within "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." Of course, nothing in the Beef Act or Beef Order prevents the Government from identifying itself as sponsor of the ads—much less requires concealment of the ads' provenance—so even if it were correct, this theory would not sustain the judgment below, which altogether enjoined the Act and the Order. But the correct focus is not on whether the ads' audience realizes the Government is speaking, but on the compelled assessment's purported interference with respondents' First Amendment rights. As we hold today, respondents enjoy no right not to fund government speech — whether by broad-based taxes or targeted assessments, and whether or not the reasonable viewer would identify the speech as the government's. If a viewer would identify the speech as respondents', however, the analysis would be different. See infra this page and 565-567, and n. 8.
The principal dissent conflates the two concepts into something it describes as citizens' "presumptive autonomy as speakers to decide what to say and what to pay for others to say."Post, at 576. As we discuss in the text, there might be a valid objection if "those singled out to pay the tax are closely linked with the expression" (post, at 575-576) in a way that makes them appear to endorse the government message. But this compelled-speech argument (like the Wooley and Barnette opinions on which it draws) differs substantively from the compelled-subsidy analysis. The latter invalidates an exaction not because being forced to pay for speech that is unattributed violates personal autonomy, but because being forced to fund someone else's private speech unconnected to any legitimate government purpose violates personal autonomy. Supra, at 557-558 (discussing Keller and Abood). Such a violation does not occur when the exaction funds government speech. Apportioning the burden of funding government operations (including speech) through taxes and other levies does not violate autonomy simply because individual taxpayers feel "singled out" or find the exaction "galling," post, at 575-576, and n. 4.
The phrase "America's Beef Producers" has apparently been trademarked by the Board since 1999, see http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr? regser=registration&entry=2352917 (as visited May 20, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court's case file), and some promotional materials are attributed to "America's Beef ProducersSM." Other promotional materials in the record, however, bear other attributions (such as a notice identifying the Beef Board as the copyright holder, or the apparently untrademarked phrase "Funded by America's Veal Producers through the Beef Check-off"). App. 52.
"America's Beef Producers" might be thought more plausibly to refer to a particular organization of beef producers, and such an organization might have a valid First Amendment objection if the ads' message were incorrectly attributed to it. CfHurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 572-573 (1995). But neither of the respondent groups claims that it would be mistaken for "America's Beef Producers," see n. 9, supra, and none of the individual respondents claims to be injured because of his membership in an organization. Rather, respondents claim that "America's Beef Producers" is precise enough to identify the speech as coming from Robert Thullner, John Smith, Ernie Mertz, and the other respondents who are American beef producers.
I join the Court's opinion. I continue to believe that "[a]ny regulation that compels the funding of advertising must be subjected to the most stringent First Amendment scrutiny." United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405, 419 (2001) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see also Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 504-506 (1997) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). At the same time, I recognize that this principle must be qualified where the regulation compels the funding of speech that is the government's own. It cannot be that all taxpayers have a First Amendment objection to taxpayer-funded government speech, even if the funded speech is not "germane" to some broader regulatory program. See ante, at 557-559. Like the Court, I see no analytical distinction between "pure" government speech funded from general tax revenues and speech funded from targeted exactions, ante, at 562-564; the practice of using targeted taxes to fund government operations, such as excise taxes, dates from the founding, see The Federalist No. 12, p. 75 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
Still, if the advertisements associated their generic probeef message with either the individual or organization respondents, then respondents would have a valid as-applied First Amendment challenge. The government may not, consistent with the First Amendment, associate individuals or organizations involuntarily with speech by attributing an unwanted message to them, whether or not those individuals fund the speech, and whether or not the message is under the government's control. This principle follows not only from our cases establishing that the government may not compel individuals to convey messages with which they disagree, see, e. g., West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 633-634 (1943); Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 713-717 (1977), but also from our expressive-association cases, which prohibit the government from coercively associating individuals or groups with unwanted messages, see, e. g., Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S. 640, 653 (2000) (government cannot "force [an] organization to send a message" with which it disagrees); Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 576-577 (1995). If West Virginia had compelled Mr. Barnette to take out an advertisement reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and purporting to be "A Message from the Barnette Children," for example, that would have been compelled speech (if a less intrusive form of it), just like the mandatory flag salute invalidated in Barnette. The present record, however, does not show that the advertisements objectively associate their message with any individual respondent. Ante, at 564-567, and n. 11.* The targeted nature of the funding is also too attenuated a link.
I resist ranking the promotional messages funded under the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985, 7 U. S. C. § 2901 et seq., but not attributed to the Government, as government speech, given the message the Government conveys in its own name. See, e. g., U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, pp. 69, 30, available at http://www. health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/ (as visited May 18, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court's case file) (noting that "[t]rans fatty acids . . . are present in foods that come from ruminant animals (e.g., cattle and sheep)" and recommending that Americans "[l]imit intake of fats and oils high in saturated and/or trans fatty acids"); post, at 9, n. 7 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). I remain persuaded, however, that the assessments in these cases, as in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), and Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), qualify as permissible economic regulation. See United Foods, 533 U. S., at 425 (BREYER, J., dissenting). For that reason, I concur in the judgment.
In 1779 Jefferson wrote that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves ... is sinful and tyrannical." A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in 5 The Founder's Constitution, No. 37, p. 77 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987), codified in 1786 at Va. Code Ann. § 57-1 (Lexis 2003). Although he was not thinking about compelled advertising of farm produce, we echoed Jefferson's view four years ago in United Foods, where we said that "First Amendment values are at serious risk if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to pay special subsidies for speech on the side that it favors . . . ." 533 U. S., at 411. United Foods addressed a scheme of enforced exaction virtually identical to the one here, except that the product involved was mushrooms, not beef. There, as here, a federal statute forced a targeted group (mushroom growers) to pay a tax that funded ads promoting its members' produce at a generic level objectionable to some of them. We held that the mushroom statute violated the growers' First Amendment right to refuse to pay for expression when they object to its content.2
Four years before United Foods we held that one such ground was present where enforced contribution to objectionable speech is incidental to a "broader collective enterprise in which th[e] freedom to act independently is already constrained by the regulatory scheme." Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 469 (1997). As noted, United Foods left open the possibility of another justification, that the objectionable message is "government speech," which our case law suggests is immune to many types of First Amendment challenge. See ante, at 558-559.
In these cases, the requirement of effective public accountability means the ranchers ought to prevail, it being clear that the Beef Act does not establish an advertising scheme subject to effective democratic checks. The reason for this is simple: the ads are not required to show any sign of being speech by the Government, and experience under the Act demonstrates how effectively the Government has masked its role in producing the ads.5 Most obviously, many of them include the tagline, "[f]unded by America's Beef Producers," App. 50-51, which all but ensures that no one reading them will suspect that the message comes from the National Government.6 But the tagline just underscores the point that would be true without it, that readers would most naturally think that ads urging people to have beef for dinner were placed and paid for by the beef producers who stand to profit when beef is on the table. No one hearing a commercial for Pepsi or Levi's thinks Uncle Sam is the man talking behind the curtain. Why would a person reading a beef ad think Uncle Sam was trying to make him eat more steak?7 Given the circumstances, it is hard to see why anyone would suspect the Government was behind the message unless the message came out and said so.
The Court takes the view that because Congress authorized this scheme and the Government controls (or at least has a veto on) the content of the beef ads, the need for democratic accountability has been satisfied. See ante, at 563-564. But the Court has it backwards. It means nothing that Government officials control the message if that fact is never required to be made apparent to those who get the message, let alone if it is affirmatively concealed from them. The political accountability of the officials with control is insufficient, in other words, just because those officials are allowed to use their control (and in fact are deliberately using it) to conceal their role from the voters with the power to hold them accountable.8 Unless the putative government speech appears to be coming from the government, its governmental origin cannot possibly justify the burden on the First Amendment interests of the dissenters targeted to pay for it.9
I note that on remand respondents may be able to amend their complaint to assert an attribution claim. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15
The Government's petition for certiorari also presented a question as to whether more limited relief might be available, but the Court denied certiorari on that question and hence it is not before us
We also noted that while the mushroom growers' disagreement with the ads' message "could be seen as minor . . ., there is no apparent principle which distinguishes out of hand minor debates about whether a branded mushroom is better than just any mushroom."United Foods, 533 U. S., at 411. The First Amendment, in other words, is not limited to "serious" or "substantial" disputes about content. Even if it were, the mushroom growers could have argued, as the ranchers could argue here, that because they would prefer to say nothing than to convey the message in the ads, the ads violate their First Amendment right not to speak at all. See, e. g., Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539, 559 (1985) ("There is necessarily, and within suitably defined areas, a [First Amendment] freedom not to speak publicly, one which serves the same ultimate end as freedom of speech in its affirmative aspect" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
SeeAbrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., joined by Brandeis, J., dissenting) ("[T]he ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — th[e] . . . best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . .").
The Court asserts that in fact there is no difference between a taxpayer's challenge to speech funded with general revenues, which our precedents foreclose, and a challenge to speech funded with targeted taxes. But the Court's lone authority for that position, our statement inUnited States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 (1982), that "[t]here is no principled way . . . to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act," id., at 260, quoted ante, at 562, is unavailing. Lee involved a religious objection to paying Social Security taxes, and the Court's statement in that case was grounded in the recognition that if the Government were required to accommodate the objection, there would be nothing to stop others from raising a similar religious objection to paying "general taxes." Here there is no comparable danger because of the commonsense notion that individuals feel a closer connection to speech that they are singled out to fund with targeted taxes than they do to expression paid for with general revenues. We recognized this in Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), where we noted that the individual taxpayer's "interest in the moneys of the Treasury — partly realized from taxation and partly from other sources — is shared with millions of others [and] is comparatively minute and indeterminable." Id., at 487. This commonsense notion, then, provides a "principled way" to distinguish in this context between targeted and general taxes. The Court in Lee seemed to recognize that its reasoning might be limited in this way, as the unredacted version of its statement reads: "[t]here is no principled way, however, for purposes of this case, to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act." 455 U. S., at 260.
The Court thinks it is enough that the Government is not required to mislead in this wayAnte, at 564, n. 7. This view that the statute is saved because it might be applied without misleading readers apparently reflects the Court's position that these cases involve a facial challenge. Ante, at 564-565. But the challenge here is to the application of the statute through actual, misleading ads, as shown by a record replete with examples.
Disputing this, petitioners Nebraska Cattlemen, Inc., et al., suggest that any danger of confusion is eliminated by the inclusion in the beef ads of a red checkmark with the word "beef" atop it, because this "distinctive checkoff logo is a direct sign that the ads are disseminated pursuant to the federal checkoff program." Reply Brief for Petitioners in No. 03-1165, pp. 15-16. It seems to me quite implausible that most (or even some) Americans associate a red checkmark underneath the word "beef" with the Federal Government. Indeed, it strikes me that even someone generally familiar with the Beef Act and its taxation mandate might not recognize the checkoff logo as signifying Government involvement
Moreover, anyone who did draw such an unlikely connection would also have to believe that Uncle Sam was having a hard time making his mind up, for other, expressly governmental messages take a different view of how much beef Americans should be eating. Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, a publication of the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, discusses beef in a chapter entitled "Fats." Http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/ (as visited May 16, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). The message of that chapter is that most Americans need to reduce their consumption of fats, and should get most of the fats they do eat from sources other than beef, namely, fish, nuts, and vegetable oils. Seeid., at 29-31. That the report, which the Secretaries of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services say "is intended to be a primary source of dietary health information," id., at i, does not encourage the consumption of beef (as the beef ads do) is clear from the fact that a different chapter, which discusses fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free dairy products, is entitled "Food Groups to Encourage," id., at 23.
Notably, the Court nowhere addresses how, or even whether, the benefits of allowing government to mislead taxpayers by concealing its sponsorship of expression outweigh the additional imposition on First Amendment rights that results from it. Indeed, the Court describes no benefits from its approach and gives no reason to think First Amendment doctrine should accommodate the Government's subterfuge. The Court merely observes that no precedent requires the Government to show its hand when it seeks to defend a targeted assessment by claiming government speechAnte, at 564, n. 7. That is of course to be expected, since the government-speech doctrine is so new that the Government has never before enjoyed the opportunity to invoke it in this Court when attempting to justify the type of compelled subsidy struck down in United Foods. Since the Court now says the Government need never show its hand in cases like this one, ante, at 564-565, there is no chance for an effective political check on forced funding for speech, however objectionable.
That said, I do not mean to suggest that explicitly labeling speech as that of government would suffice when individuals must personally convey government's message, as inWest Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943), and Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977). The infringement on the speaker's autonomy in those situations is greater than in cases like the ones before us today, so great that it cannot be saved by allowing speakers to inform listeners that they (the speakers) are simply communicating a government message or that they disagree with the message. The Court apparently took the same view in Wooley, as it was unmoved by the dissent's observation in that case that New Hampshire drivers were free to "place on their bumper a conspicuous bumper sticker explaining in no uncertain terms that they do not profess the motto `Live Free or Die.'" Id., at 722 (opinion of REHNQUIST, J.).
Petitioners also defend the Beef Act by pointing toCentral Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557 (1980), where we subjected restrictions on commercial speech to a less rigorous level of review than that applied to restrictions on most other types of speech. But the Court strongly suggested in Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 469 (1997), and in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), both that Central Hudson scrutiny is not appropriate in a case involving compelled speech rather than restrictions on speech, and that even if some relaxed standard of review analogous to Central Hudson were employed the Beef Act would not survive it. See Glickman, supra, at 474, n. 18 ("The Court of Appeals fails to explain why the Central Hudson test, which involved a restriction on commercial speech, should govern a case involving the compelled funding of speech"); United Foods, supra, at 410 ("[E]ven viewing commercial speech as entitled to lesser protection, we find no basis under either Glickman or our other precedents to sustain the compelled assessments sought in this case"). Petitioners do not explain why we should depart from these intimations that restrictions on speech are not judged by the same standard as compelled speech.