Opinion ID: 203907
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Narrow Tailoring/Channels of Communication.

Text: A regulation is narrowly tailored if it (i) facilitates a substantial governmental interest that would be less effectively served without the regulation and (ii) accomplishes this end without burdening substantially more speech than necessary. Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746. The first element of this two-part definition is not seriously disputed here. The interests ascribed by the legislature to the 2007 Act (enhancing public safety around RHCFs, improving traffic flow, and the like) are the same as those that we deemed both proper and substantial in McGuire I, 260 F.3d at 48 (describing those interests as precisely the sort of interests that justify some incidental burdening of First Amendment rights). It is the second part of the definition that draws the plaintiffs' fire: they argue that the 2007 Act regulates too much speech. But this argument rests on a misconception; it assumes that, in order to survive intermediate scrutiny, a law (and within a law, a buffer zone) must burden no more speech than is absolutely necessary to accomplish the law's legitimate purpose. Perscrutation of the plaintiffs' briefs makes it apparent that this misconception arises out of a misreading of the Court's decisions in Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network, Inc., 519 U.S. 357, 117 S.Ct. 855, 137 L.Ed.2d 1 (1997), and Madsen v. Women's Health Center, 512 U.S. 753, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 (1994). In each instance, the Court applied a no greater restriction than necessary standard to determine the validity of an injunction. See Schenck, 519 U.S. at 374, 117 S.Ct. 855; Madsen, 512 U.S. at 765, 114 S.Ct. 2516. But injunctions (which bind only the parties in a particular case and those in privity with them) are more targeted than statutes (which apply broadly to all concerned). This is a critically important distinction; the Court has made it pellucid that the absence of general applicability subjects injunctions to a stricter standard than legislative enactments. See Madsen, 512 U.S. at 764-65, 114 S.Ct. 2516; cf. Ry. Exp. Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 112, 69 S.Ct. 463, 93 L.Ed. 533 (1949) ([T]here is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.) (Jackson, J., concurring). A law of general application passes muster under narrow tailoring principles as long as it is not substantially broader than necessary to accomplish the legislature's legitimate goal. See Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746; see also Madsen, 512 U.S. at 764, 114 S.Ct. 2516. Ward supplies the measuring stick that we must wield. The 2007 Act is a law of general application. Given that it promotes a substantial public interest, McGuire I, 260 F.3d at 48, the decisive question is whether it burdens substantially more speech than necessary to serve that purpose. If the answer to that query is in the negative, the law does not offend the First Amendment simply because a court concludes that the government's interest could be adequately served by some less-speech-restrictive alternative. Ward, 491 U.S. at 800, 109 S.Ct. 2746. This means, of course, that a judge's agreement with the responsible decisionmaker concerning the most appropriate method for promoting significant government interests or the degree to which those interests should be promoted are not conditions precedent to upholding a time-place-manner restriction. Id. That conclusion effectively ends this aspect of the matter. Testimony from law enforcement officers and clinic workers attested to the ineffectiveness of the preexisting law. Against that backdrop, the legislature determined, after considerable study, that the state's declared interests would be better served by reconfiguring the buffer zone around RHCFs. The legislature labored to balance First Amendment concerns with public safety concerns, see McCullen, 573 F.Supp.2d at 397-98 (recounting evidence), mulled the advantages and disadvantages of variously configured buffer zones, and decided (reasonably, we think) that a 35-foot fixed buffer zone made sense. Given the deference that is owed to such legislative judgments, see Turner Broad., 520 U.S. at 195, 117 S.Ct. 1174, we cannot say that the 2007 Act is substantially broader than necessary. The fact that the legislature reached a different conclusion seven years earlier (when it preferred a smaller buffer zone that had both floating and fixed components) does not undercut this conclusion. After all, legislative choice is a dynamic process. Simply because a legislature previously has attempted to address a particular problem in one way does not disable it from taking a different approach at a later time. See, e.g., Ward, 491 U.S. at 800, 109 S.Ct. 2746 (justifying increased regulation based on evidence of inadequacy of municipality's prior attempts to combat noise); Nat'l Amusements, 43 F.3d at 742 n. 9 (similar); cf. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 187, 111 S.Ct. 1759, 114 L.Ed.2d 233 (1991) (affirming agency's reversal of position while noting that in exercising legislatively delegated authority agency is free to consider the wisdom of its policy on a continuing basis). Experience is often the best teacher, and the incremental nature of the legislature's actions seems more a virtue than a vice. On these facts, the legislature's judgment must be respected. See Turner Broad., 520 U.S. at 195, 117 S.Ct. 1174. Relatedly, the plaintiffs suggest that the 2007 Act is constitutionally infirm because it amounts to a ban on handbilling and interferes with the provision of an eight-to-fifteen-foot constitutional conversational distance. That suggestion is jejune. Contrary to the plaintiffs' importunings, the Constitution neither recognizes nor gives special protection to any particular conversational distance. See, e.g., Schenck, 519 U.S. at 380, 117 S.Ct. 855 (upholding a fixed 15-foot buffer zone). By the same token, handbilling is not specially protected. See Heffron v. Int'l Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 654, 101 S.Ct. 2559, 69 L.Ed.2d 298 (1981). Time-place-manner regulations routinely make particular forms of expression impracticable without raising constitutional concerns. See, e.g., Hill, 530 U.S. at 726-28, 120 S.Ct. 2480. As we explained in Bl(a)ck Tea Society v. City of Boston, 378 F.3d 8, 14 (1st Cir.2004), there is no constitutional guarantee of any particular form or mode of expression. The correct inquiry is whether, in light of the totality of the circumstances, a time-place-manner regulation burdens substantially more speech than necessary and, concomitantly, whether such a regulation leaves open adequate alternative channels of communication. See Clark, 468 U.S. at 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065. This brings us to the question of whether the 2007 Act satisfies the last half of this prescription  the half that deals with alternative channels of communication. To begin, the 2007 Act places no burden at all on the plaintiffs' activities outside the 35-foot buffer zone. They can speak, gesticulate, wear screen-printed T-shirts, display signs, use loudspeakers, and engage in the whole gamut of lawful expressive activities. Those messages may be seen and heard by individuals entering, departing, or within the buffer zone. Additionally, the plaintiffs may stand on the sidewalk and offer either literature or spoken advice to pedestrians, including those headed into or out of the buffer zone. Any willing listener is at liberty to leave the zone, approach those outside it, and request more information. To cinch matters, the size of the zone is not unreasonable. It bears repeating at this point that we are dealing exclusively with a facial challenge to the 2007 Act. Thus, as long as we can envision circumstances in which a 35-foot buffer zone allows adequate alternative means of expression, the challenge must fail. See Wash. State Grange, 128 S.Ct. at 1190. It is easy to envision such a scenario. Indeed, the zone at issue here is slightly smaller than that upheld in Madsen, 512 U.S. at 768-70, 114 S.Ct. 2516 (validating a 36-foot buffer zone under a standard stricter than that which is applicable here). By like token, the zone at issue here is substantially smaller than the fixed portion of the buffer zone approved in Hill, 530 U.S. at 703, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (upholding a floating buffer zone within a 100-foot fixed buffer zone). Also instructive is Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992), in which the Court, applying strict scrutiny to a content-based regulation, approved a 100-foot buffer zone for polling places. Id. at 211, 112 S.Ct. 1846. While there is no particular buffer zone radius that is per se permissible or impermissible  everything depends on context  the radius here is not, on its face, constitutionally deficient. To say more on the binary question of narrow tailoring and alternative channels of communication would be supererogatory. In the circumstances revealed by the record, the 2007 Act, on its face, is a valid time-place-manner regulation that advances a significant governmental interest without burdening substantially more speech than necessary and leaves open adequate alternative channels of communication. Accordingly, the statute survives intermediate scrutiny.