Opinion ID: 161267
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Definition of Forum

Text: 43 Before we may properly characterize the forum at issue, we must first identify its boundaries. See id. at 801 ([F]orum analysis is not completed merely by identifying the government property at issue). To define the relevant forum, the Supreme Court has 44 focused on the access sought by the speaker. When speakers seek general access to public property, the forum encompasses that property. In cases in which limited access is sought, [the Court's] cases have taken a more tailored approach to ascertaining the perimeters of a forum within the confines of the government property. 45 Id. (citation omitted). For example, the Cornelius Court defined the relevant forum as the federal fund-raising drive to which the plaintiffs sought access, rather than the federal workplace in general. Id.; see also Lebron v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. (Amtrak), 69 F.3d 650, 655-56 (2d Cir.) (defining forum as particular advertising space to which plaintiff sought access, rather than alternative space also owned by defendant), amended by 89 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 1995); Texas v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 58 F.3d 1075, 1078 (5th Cir. 1995) (defining forum as Adopt-a-Highway Program rather than public highways generally, where KKK sought permission to participate in Program near recently desegregated housing project). We recognize that Ms. Wells and the FFRF initially sought access only to the fenced-off area, Aplt. Add. at 9-12 (Pl. Ex. 11-12), and that they actually installed the Winter Solstice sign inside the fence. Id. at 2 (Pl. Ex. 4). Nonetheless, the record shows that for the purpose of Plaintiffs' as applied challenge to the unattended display ban, the relevant forum encompasses the entire East Steps, whether fenced-off or not. See Aplt. App. at 49 ([W]e don't even want [the Winter Solstice sign] included in [Denver's] display. All we want to do is to have the right to post our sign unattended on the steps . . . .) (statement by Plaintiffs' counsel at hearing) (emphasis added). 8