Opinion ID: 2265911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Tax Furthers the Substantial State Interest of Providing Treatment for Sex Offenders and Thereby Preventing Future Offenses

Text: ¶ 31 As to the second prong, we conclude that the Tax furthers a substantial government interest. While Plaintiffs acknowledge that providing treatment for sex offenders is an important government interest, they claim that the Tax fails to satisfy the second prong of the O'Brien test for two reasons: (1) there is not sufficient evidence supporting a connection between nude dancing establishments and sex offenders; and even if a sufficient connection did exist, (2) the Tax impermissibly attempts to address the primary, rather than secondary, effects of nude dancing. ¶ 32 Plaintiffs' objections regarding the lack of evidentiary connection are misplaced because they are based on the requirements of the secondary effects test rather than the O'Brien test. While Plaintiffs are correct in noting that the Supreme Court, in construing the substantial state interest prong under Renton and its other secondary effects cases, has required parties seeking to justify a regulation of speech under the secondary effects doctrine to establish some level of evidentiary connection between the secondary effects a regulation targets and the speech it regulates, no similar burden of proof exists under the O'Brien test. [53] ¶ 33 As set forth above, the evidentiary connection requirement for secondary effects regulations exists to provide assurance that the regulation was actually motivated by the asserted concerns over secondary effects rather than by the content of the speech itself. A review of the relevant case law shows that the second prong of the O'Brien test does not require that the state provide evidentiary proof of a connection between the speech it regulates and secondary effects. [54] Instead, all that is required is that the state show its regulation would advance a substantial state interest. The requirement that the interest be substantial simply ensures that the state's interest in adopting the legislation is sufficiently weighty to justify the incidental burdens that the regulation may place on some protected expression. [55] ¶ 34 Plaintiffs' arguments relating to primary effects are misplaced for a similar reason. The primary effects of speech are the direct impacts that the speech has upon the listener or viewersuch as a change in attitude or an increased motivation to engage in certain behavior. The secondary effects of speech, on the other hand, are indirect effects associated with the speech. Secondary effects do not operate on the listener but on something else, such as the neighborhood surrounding the location where the speech occurs. [56] Plaintiffs contend that the Tax should be subject to strict scrutiny because the State has failed to justify the Tax by reference to secondary effects. Plaintiffs claim that the State has offered only the argument that people who view erotic nude dancing are more likely to commit sex offenses. Plaintiffs contend that, even if the State's assertion is true, such an effect is a primary, rather than secondary, effect of erotic nude dancing since it operates, if at all, through the impact that watching erotic nude dancing has on the viewer. Plaintiffs' argument is wholly misplaced because the distinction between primary and secondary effects of speech is only relevant when a court is evaluating the constitutionality of a content-based regulation of speech. The O'Brien analysis assumes the evaluated regulation will impose some burden on protected expression, which inevitably results in a burden on the primary effects of that protected expression. The whole point of the O'Brien analysis is to determine whether that burden is acceptable in light of the government's asserted interest in enacting the regulation. Thus, even assuming that Plaintiffs' distinction regarding primary and secondary effects is correct, this fact is irrelevant in the context of a content-neutral regulation of conduct, like the Tax, that is reviewed under O'Brien. ¶ 35 Finally, the mere fact that the State has referenced secondary effects as a justification for its conduct-based Tax does not convert the Tax from a content-neutral regulation of conduct into a content-based regulation of speech. In his Erie dissent, Justice Stevens argued that, where a government seeks to justify a regulation of conduct based, in part, on secondary effects, the regulation should be treated as a content-based regulation of speech and subjected to the secondary effects analysis: The Court cannot have its cake and eat it tooeither Erie's ordinance was not aimed at speech and the Court may attempt to justify the regulation under the incidental burdens test, or Erie has aimed its law at the secondary effects of speech, and the Court can try to justify the law under that doctrine. But it cannot conflate the two with the expectation that Erie's interests aimed at secondary effects will be rendered unrelated to speech by virtue of this doctrinal polyglot. [57] The plurality rejected Justice Stevens's argument, noting that While the doctrinal theories behind incidental burdens and secondary effects are, of course, not identical, there is nothing objectionable about a city passing a general ordinance to ban public nudity (even though such a ban may place incidental burdens on some protected speech) and at the same time recognizing that one specific occurrence of public nuditynude erotic dancingis particularly problematic because it produces harmful secondary effects. [58] In other words, the mere fact that, in debating the Tax, legislators referenced concerns with the secondary effects associated with nudity in business does not necessarily mean without morethat the Tax constitutes a content-based regulation of speech that must be justified either under the secondary effects doctrine or traditional strict scrutiny. The key consideration is whether the statute seeks to suppress speech or regulate conductnot whether concerns about secondary effects played some motivational role in its enactment. ¶ 36 In this case, the record supports the conclusion that the Tax is directed toward the substantial state interest of providing treatment for sex offenders, with the twin goals of rehabilitation and prevention of future offenses. It is also clear that the Tax furthers that interest by raising revenue that is specifically directed toward sex offender treatment programs. [59] Because the Tax furthers a substantial state interest, [60] we conclude that it satisfies the second prong of the O'Brien test.
¶ 37 The Tax also satisfies the third prong of the O'Brien testthe requirement that the government interest be unrelated to the suppression of protected expression. Under Supreme Court case law, it is clear that a regulation satisfies this prong of O'Brien so long as its predominant purpose is not the suppression of protected expression. [61] The record before us supports the conclusion that the predominant government interest precipitating passage of the Tax was the need to provide treatment for sex offenders. This interest is unrelated to any attempt to suppress speech; indeed, as set out above, any impacts on protected speech are incidental burdens associated with the Tax's application to a general class of conduct.
¶ 38 Finally, the Tax satisfies the fourth prong of the O'Brien test as well, in that the burdens that the Tax places on protected expression are no greater than necessary. Although the Supreme Court's use of the no greater than necessary language in O'Brien appears similar to the least restrictive means requirement for strict scrutiny, the Court has made clear that this prong does not require the state to show that its chosen means for advancing the substantial state interest is the least restrictive means available. [62] Instead, the fourth prong of the O'Brien test imposes only a requirement that the regulation be narrowly tailored, in the sense that it promote[] a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation. [63] De minimis impacts on protected speech are permissible. [64] ¶ 39 Plaintiffs argue that the Tax fails this prong because there are less burdensome ways of addressing the state's interest in providing treatment for sex offenders and that the First Amendment requires that these methods, rather than the Tax, be used. ¶ 40 To begin with, Plaintiffs' argument suggests that O'Brien requires a regulation of conduct placing incidental burdens on some protected expression to use the least restrictive means available to serve the state's asserted interest. The Supreme Court has expressly rejected that formulation of the O'Brien test. [65] Additionally, Plaintiffs' least restrictive means argument is contrary to its own position that a general taxone that burdens all businesseswould satisfy First Amendment scrutiny under O'Brien. A generalized tax would no doubt inflict burdens on a greater variety of protected expression than the Tax at issue here, and therefore would not be the least restrictive means available. The Supreme Court's cases have made clear that the fourth prong of O'Brien is satisfied so long as a content-neutral regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation. [66] Further, de minimis impacts on protected expression are permissible. [67] ¶ 41 In this case, the Tax promotes the interest in providing treatment for sex offenders by raising revenue and directing that revenue towards treatment programs. While there may be other, less speech-restrictive means of accomplishing the interest, the Tax is not invalid simply because there is some imaginable alternative that might be less burdensome on speech. [68] The validity of [content neutral regulations of conduct] does not turn on a judge's agreement with the responsible decisionmaker concerning the most appropriate method for promoting significant government interests. [69] ¶ 42 Additionally, any burdens the Tax imposes on protected expression are de minimis. Indeed, the Tax burdens protected expression substantially less than the public nudity ordinance upheld by the Supreme Court in Erie. The Erie ordinance imposed a blanket ban on nudity in public. The Supreme Court noted that the public nudity ban's burden on nude dancing was de minimis, since all the dancers had to do to avoid the ban was to wear G-strings and pasties. [70] The ordinance left nude dancers ample capacity to convey [their] erotic message [71] and only limited whatever expression that might occur when the last stitch is dropped. [72] ¶ 43 Plaintiffs can avoid the Tax, just like the businesses in Erie could avoid the ordinance, simply by having their erotic dancers use G-strings and pasties. Additionally, the Tax places less of a burden on protected expression than the ordinance upheld in Erie in two ways. First, in contrast to the Erie ordinance, which banned all public nudity under threat of criminal sanctions, [73] the Tax neither prohibits public nudity nor imposes criminal penaltiesit simply imposes an additional cost on the commercial use of nudity as a method of expression. Secondly, the 30-day exemption period further limits the Tax's burden on protected expression. The exemption period allows businesses to use nudity as a means of expression for up to 30 days each calendar year without being subject to the Tax. Since the Tax's impact on protected expression is even less burdensome than the impact of the public nudity ordinance upheld in Erie, we determine that the Tax satisfies the narrow tailoring prong of the O'Brien test. ¶ 44 We are unpersuaded by Plaintiffs' citation to cases such as Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue [74] and Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland [75] for the proposition that First Amendment rights may not be taxed. To begin with, as set out above, the Tax is, on its face, a regulation of conduct. The Tax is thus meaningfully distinguishable from those struck down in Minneapolis Star and Arkansas Writers' Project, which were content-based regulations of speech. [76] ¶ 45 Additionally, neither Minneapolis Star nor Arkansas Writers' Project actually stand for the blanket proposition that a tax, whether general or differential, can never burden protected First Amendment expression. Instead, they simply confirm the already well-established rule that content-based regulations of speech are presumptively unconstitutional. [77] They also evidence an understandable concern for regulations that directly implicate the freedom of the press. [78] This is made clear by Leathers v. Medlock, in which the Supreme Court, in distinguishing that case from Minneapolis Star and Arkansas Writers' Project, clarified that a tax scheme that does not target specific ideas or viewpoints on its face, and that is not structured or enacted in order to impose a penalty for particular speakers or particular ideas, does not necessarily run afoul of the First Amendment. [79] As set out above, the Tax is neither facially discriminatory nor does the record or the Tax's structure establish that it was enacted with the predominant purpose of suppressing protected expression. ¶ 46 Finally, the taxes in Minneapolis Star and Arkansas Writers' Project were sales and use taxes imposed on the necessary materials for newspaper publishing and sales of magazines, respectively. The affected publishers could not avoid paying the taxes if they wanted to continue to operate as newspapers and magazines. [80] In contrast, Plaintiffs, and other erotic dancing clubs, can avoid the Tax and continue to operate as erotic dance clubs simply by requiring their dancers to use GS-trings and pasties. The effect on the erotic message is minimal. The Tax simply imposes a cost on using a particular means of expression rather than on the expression itselfa distinction that the Supreme Court has expressly acknowledged as significant in Erie. [81] ¶ 47 Accordingly, we conclude that the Tax is narrowly tailored and that it satisfies the fourth prong of the O'Brien test. Having determined that the Tax is a content-neutral regulation of conduct that passes the O'Brien test, we now turn to Plaintiffs' argument that the tax is unconstitutionally overbroad.