Opinion ID: 1290351
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Desert's as-applied challenge

Text: An as-applied challenge contends that [a] law is unconstitutional as applied to [a] litigant's particular speech activity, even though the law may be capable of valid application to others. Foti v. City of Menlo Park, 146 F.3d 629, 635 (9th Cir. 1998). Desert purports to raise an as-applied challenge to OMC § 1501, but it misunderstands the nature of such challenges. As-applied challenges are not based solely on the application of an allegedly unconstitutional law to a particular litigant. Rather, they separately argue that discriminatory enforcement of a speech restriction amounts to viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. Id. (emphasis added). It is for this reason that a successful as-applied challenge does not render the law itself invalid but only the particular application of the law. Id. An as-applied challenge goes to the nature of the application rather than the nature of the law itself. Desert does not argue that the City's refusal to let it maintain its freeway-visible commercial advertising resulted from discriminatory enforcement. [7] Nor could it. OMC § 1501 provides a flat ban on such advertising and does not allow for variances. City officials thus had no discretion when applying § 1501 to Desert's signs, and Desert cannot show that the City's particular application of the law evidenced any degree of subjectivity or undue discretion. Foti, 146 F.3d at 635. We thus reject Desert's purported as-applied challenge of § 1501 and affirm the finding of the district court with regard to that challenge.