Opinion ID: 196860
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The City of Somerville Problem: Penalizing Past Speech

Text: 22 The regulation's second flaw arises from the manner in which it seeks to protect ideological speech. The substitution provision guarantees that noncommercial messages may be placed on any exempted sign. What this means, however, is that Cambridge is choosing which speakers may in the future display offsite noncommercial messages on nonconforming signs in the way City of Somerville held was impermissible--by looking to past speech. Only those speakers whose signs displayed onsite messages on the day of the ordinance's enactment may substitute noncommercial messages for the previous ones. We explored at some length in City of Somerville the dangers of awarding future speech rights based on past speech. See 878 F.2d at 519-20. 23 Although those dangers may seem less likely from the Cambridge regulation because it does not, like Somerville's, disqualify speakers based on only a single day's display of a non-preferred message (i.e., offsite commercial) during the course of a year, the Cambridge scheme's reliance on the date of enactment nevertheless eliminates speakers from future access to a particular medium based on their past choice of lawful speech. If it is impermissible to assign future speech rights based on the content of past speech, the amount of past speech does not strike us as significant. The chilling effect that results from linking future speech to past speech exists even if the pressure to conform one's speech is compressed into a short time frame. 24 Moreover, the division drawn here between those who may and may not use nonconforming signs in the future, for the most part, isolates business and property owners as a privileged class. As Cambridge freely acknowledges, onsite signs typically are commercial in nature. Because the substitution provision gives the right to display noncommercial messages on nonconforming signs only to those individuals whose signs previously carried onsite messages, the primary effect of the substitution provision is to give only commercial speakers the option of changing their signs to noncommercial messages. 25 Giving an identifiable group virtually exclusive access to the use of a medium is wholly inconsistent with First Amendment principles; it is doubtful that the noncommercial messages of interest to business owners would reflect as broad a cross-section of viewpoints as might occur in a marketplace in which every speaker has equal footing to speak. 13 Indeed, the case law makes it clear that even more problematic than the loss of all noncommercial messages would be the selective preservation of them. See Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 2445, 2476, 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994) (Under the First Amendment, it is normally not within the government's power to decide who may speak and who may not, at least on private property or in traditional public fora.); 14 Somerville, 878 F.2d at 518 (Even if a complete ban on nonconforming signs would be permissible, we must consider carefully the government's decision to pick and choose among the speakers permitted to use such signs.) (citing and quoting First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 784-85, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 1420-21, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978) (In the realm of protected speech, the legislature is constitutionally disqualified from dictating ... the speakers who may address a public issue.)). 26 What made this case particularly difficult is that the offsite label, in practical terms, embraces not only most noncommercial signs but also most of the worst aesthetic offenders. In addition, most offsite signs tend to display commercial messages; Ackerley's present configuration in Cambridge is a deliberate departure from its usual mixture of messages (15% noncommercial) in order to place itself in the best possible position to retain use of its sign faces. Limiting grandfather protection to onsite signs thus is an effective means of accomplishing the city's legitimate objective of improving aesthetics, and typically would result in the loss primarily of offsite commercial messages. 27 The fact remains, however, that the grandfathering benefit is conferred in content-based terms that have no aesthetic justification and effectively penalizes a category of speakers based on their prior choice of message. In addition, nearly all of the sign owners privileged to display offsite noncommercial messages on nonconforming signs may be expected to share similar views on certain matters of public interest. We hold that the First Amendment does not allow Cambridge to achieve its aesthetic objective by allocating the right to speak in this way. 15