Opinion ID: 6221944
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Officials’ First Amendment Claims

Text: The circuit court declared section 115.646 violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment because it regulates the officials’ speech based on the content of their speech and fails strict scrutiny. This was error. “The First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits laws abridging the freedom of speech.” Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163 (2015) (quotation marks omitted). Section 115.646, however, plainly does not regulate the officials’ speech. Rather, section 115.646 regulates the use of “public funds” to subsidize the officials’ speech. 4 Section 115.646 does not purport to regulate the speech of officials when they do not use public funds. Section 115.646 also does not in any way prohibit the use of private or personal funds to subsidize officials’ speech. In other words, section 115.646 does not limit or prohibit officials’ speech; it merely prohibits them from using public funds to facilitate or augment that speech. See Sweetman v. State Elections Enf’t Comm’n, 732 A.2d 144, 157 4 Plaintiffs do not argue section 115.646 violates the First Amendment rights of political subdivisions by regulating a political subdivision’s use of public funds to convey its message through its officials, employees, or agents. Such an argument would lack merit because 4 (Conn. 1999) (rejecting the argument that a similar statute chilled speech because “[t]he statute does not prohibit public officials from speaking; it merely prohibits them from using the public fisc to purchase a soapbox”). Essentially, the officials argue they are authorized to use public funds to subsidize speech they believe is in the best interest of their political subdivisions. This Court can assume (without deciding) this was true before the enactment of section 115.646, but plainly the legislature has stripped such authority from them and doing so does not violate the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has recognized, “A refusal to fund protected activity, without more, cannot be equated with the imposition of a ‘penalty’ on that activity.” Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 193 (1991) (quotation marks omitted). As a result, “[a] legislature’s decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right.” Id. (quotation marks omitted); see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) (finding a statute providing public funding to some candidates but not others did not violate the speech rights of candidates who did not receive funding), superseded by statute. Because these officials have no indefeasible right to use public funds to subsidize their speech, section 115.646 does not violate the First Amendment.