Opinion ID: 835101
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Restrictions on offering gifts

Text: ORS 244.025(2) and (3) prohibit a lobbyist from offer[ing] to a public official or candidate for public office (or their relatives or household members) any gift or gifts with an aggregate value in excess of $50. ORS 244.025(4)(b) and (c) prohibit a lobbyist from offer[ing] to a public official or candidate for public office any gift of payment of expenses for entertainment. [12] We recognize that the same statutes that restrict plaintiffs' right to communicate an offer of a gift that exceeds the statutory limitations also prohibit the public official from accepting the offered gift. As we have discussed earlier, the statutory restrictions on a public official's ability to accept specified gifts from lobbyists are constitutionally valid. In that light, it can be argued that, if the statutory restrictions on the receipt of gifts are constitutionally permissible, there is no need to analyze the statutory restriction on offering a gift: any claimed right to offer a gift to a public official is essentially rendered nugatory, if a public official cannot accept it. However, the restrictions on receiving a gift and offering a gift apply to different kinds of conduct and they deserve a separate constitutional analysis. In our view, the legal validity of restrictions on receiving gifts does not resolve the question whether plaintiffs enjoy a constitutional free expression right to communicate an offer of a gift. Unlike the statutory restriction on the receipt of gifts (including by implication a restriction on the giving of gifts), the restrictions on offering gifts, when examined under the Robertson methodology, are a type of law that focuses on the content of speaking or writing: offering a gift. The restrictions on offering a gift are not aimed at the pursuit or accomplishment of some forbidden results, such as, perhaps, the regulation of conflicts of interest involving government officials. Rather, they focus on every utterance of an offer, of the kind described in the statute, whether or not such an offer produces any invidious effect. See City of Portland v. Tidyman, 306 Or. 174, 183-84, 759 P.2d 242 (1988) (city ordinance prohibiting adult bookstores was addressed to one disfavored type of communication by words and pictures; ordinance was not written in terms of asserted negative effects of adult bookstores). The trial court correctly determined, insofar as the restrictions on offering gifts are concerned, that those restrictions expressly regulate speech by lobbyists. [A]rticle I, section 8 prohibits lawmakers from enacting restrictions that focus on the content of speech or writing, either because that content itself is deemed socially undesirable or offensive, or because it is thought to have adverse consequences.    It means that laws must focus on proscribing the pursuit or accomplishment of forbidden results rather than on the suppression of speech or writing either as an end in itself or as a means to some other legislative end. Robertson, 293 Or. at 416-17, 649 P.2d 569. Applying that standard here, we also conclude that the restrictions on offering gifts do not focus on the pursuit or accomplishment of forbidden results. The state next contends that the restrictions on offering gifts qualify as permissible reasonable limitations on the time, place, and manner of expression that leave open ample avenues for engaging in the proscribed expression. We disagree. In Tidyman, this court stated: A regulation is not always unconstitutional because it restricts one's choice of a place or time for self-expression or religious practice, when that is not the object of the regulation. 306 Or. at 182, 759 P.2d 242. Tidyman explained several ways in which a city permissibly could limit all location, time, manner, intensity, or invasive effect of some communicative activity    [or impose] limitations of number, frequency, density, or duration of communication. Id. at 183, 759 P.2d 242. The court listed, as examples, the granting of evenhanded exceptions to otherwise valid restrictions on the placement of signs, the flow of traffic during a demonstration, and the use of sound trucks during a campaign. But, as noted, those examples did not assist the city there, because its ordinance was drafted to prohibit one kind of disfavored speech, i.e., adult bookstores. Outdoor Media Dimensions v. Dept. of Transportation, 340 Or. 275, 132 P.3d 5 (2006), elaborated on the holding in Tidyman, explaining that, although content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech can be sustained, that category of regulations concerns laws that focus on the accomplishment of `forbidden results,' but do so by restricting expression, [and therefore] such restrictions appear to come within the second of the three Robertson categories. Id. at 288, 132 P.3d 5. As noted, the second Robertson category refers to laws that prohibit expression used to achieve prohibited effects. The restrictions on the offering of gifts, as noted, do not fall within the second Robertson category, because they expressly prohibit disfavored speech without referring at all to prohibited effects that the legislature may proscribe. The restrictions on offering gifts also do not qualify as limitations on the time, place, and manner of speech. The restrictions apply to every offer of a gift that meets the statutory criteria, regardless of when, where, and in what manner it is made. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the statutory restrictions on offer[ing] a gift to a public official, candidate for public office, or relative or household member impermissibly restrict the right of free expression protected by Article I, section 8. [13] With respect to that statutory restriction, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the state. Instead, the trial court should have entered a declaratory judgment in plaintiffs' favor, with respect to the restriction on offer[ing] gifts.