Opinion ID: 2625764
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Analysis Under the State Constitution

Text: (19) The thrust of SLTA's position is that under the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution (art. I, § 2, subd. (a)), a different analysis more protective of employee organizations' right of free expression is required  as explained below, either a balancing test or a basic incompatibility test. SLTA's starting point is the distinctive language of our constitutional provision: Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 2, subd. (a).) It is often stated that the California liberty of speech clause is broader and more protective than the free speech clause of the First Amendment. (See, e.g., Los Angeles Alliance for Survival v. City of Los Angeles (2000) 22 Cal.4th 352, 366-367 [93 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 993 P.2d 334], and cases cited therein.) The liberty of speech clause has been interpreted more broadly than the First Amendment in several areas, including recognizing privately owned shopping centers as public forums subject to free speech protections ( Fashion Valley Mall, LLC v. National Labor Relations Bd. (2007) 42 Cal.4th 850, 862-863 [69 Cal.Rptr.3d 288, 172 P.3d 742]) and according greater protection to certain types of commercial speech ( Gerawan Farming, Inc. v. Kawamura (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1, 16 [14 Cal.Rptr.3d 14, 90 P.3d 1179]). SLTA first argues that California courts have not employed a public forum test when it comes to determining the free speech rights of teachers in the school setting, but instead have used a balancing test, citing L. A. Teachers Union v. L. A. City Bd. of Ed. (1969) 71 Cal.2d 551 [78 Cal.Rptr. 723, 455 P.2d 827] ( L. A. Teachers Union ) and California Teachers Assn. v. Governing Board (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 1383 [53 Cal.Rptr.2d 474] ( CTA). In L. A. Teachers Union, the union contested the school district policy that prohibited off-duty teachers from circulating in the faculty lunchroom and lounge a petition for the improvement of education. The court, in explaining the proper test under the First Amendment, stated: we must strike `a balance between the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.' ( L. A. Teachers Union, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 558.) The court, in upholding the teachers' right to petition, concluded that the teachers' interest in political expression was paramount, while the district had failed to demonstrate that its concerns with substantial disruption of school operations were well founded. ( Id. at pp. 559-563.) In CTA, the question was whether teachers could wear buttons in school opposing a statewide school voucher initiative. Employing the balancing test used in L. A. Teachers Union, the court concluded that the District's strong interest in regulating classroom activity justified prohibiting teachers from wearing the buttons in the classroom, but that the balance tipped in favor of free expression in noninstructional settings. ( CTA, supra, 45 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1388-1392.) The District argues that we have never recognized and should not recognize a balancing test under the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution that departs from public forum analysis under the First Amendment. It points out that L. A. Teachers Union predates development of the public forum doctrine. Although SLTA cites In re Hoffman (1967) 67 Cal.2d 845 [64 Cal.Rptr. 97, 434 P.2d 353] in arguing that this court had already adopted something like a public forum analysis by the time L. A. Teachers Union had been decided, it appears correct that not until Perry in 1983 did the United States Supreme Court articulate its three-tiered public forum doctrine. (See Farber & Nowak, The Misleading Nature of Public Forum Analysis: Content and Context in First Amendment Adjudication (1984) 70 Va. L.Rev. 1219, 1220-1221 (Farber & Nowak).) Moreover, L. A. Teachers Union cannot plausibly be read to signify that this court considered and rejected public forum doctrine in analyzing employee speech in schools under the California Constitutionindeed the case was decided under the First Amendment. ( L. A. Teachers Union, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 566.) In any event, the present case is also distinguishable from L. A. Teachers Union. In the latter case, there was no question that the faculty lounge and lunchroom were places in which unrestricted conversations between teachers took place, and we found no plausible reason to prevent the circulation of a petition in that context. ( L. A. Teachers Union, supra, 71 Cal.2d at pp. 560-563.) We rejected the notion that the government had an interest in preventing controversy, or that its interest in preventing disruption of off-duty faculty engaged in work-related preparation justified a broad prohibition on circulating petitions. ( Id. at pp. 561-562.) In the present case, the school mailboxes are dedicated to school business and, by statute, to union communications with employees, but are not places where open exchanges of ideas occur. The District has a legitimate interest in restricting mailbox communications so as not to permit such mailboxes to become venues for the one-sided endorsement of political candidates by those with special access. SLTA and amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union also advocate an alternative type of public forum analysis principally based on U.C. Nuclear Weapons Labs Conversion Project v. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1984) 154 Cal.App.3d 1157 [201 Cal.Rptr. 837] ( U.C. Weapons Labs ). In that case, a group protesting nuclear weapons research at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Livermore Laboratory) sought a preliminary injunction to compel access to the laboratory's visitor centers, for purposes of distributing and displaying its literature to the public and to the auditorium for purposes of showing a slideshow or film. The court departed somewhat from the United States Supreme Court's rendering of the public forum doctrine, and instead articulated a more protective version based on the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution. (154 Cal.App.3d at p. 1169.) The court rejected an all-or-nothing approach to the issue of whether government property is a public forum, viewing the public forum question as a continuum, with public streets and parks at one end and government institutions like hospitals and prisons at the other. ( Id. at p. 1164.) Instead, adopting the analysis formulated by then Court of Appeal Justice Grodin in Prisoners Union v. Department of Corrections (1982) 135 Cal.App.3d 930, 935 [185 Cal.Rptr. 634], the court reasoned that the question was not whether the government property in question could be considered a public forum, but rather whether there was a basic incompatibility between the proposed communicative activity and the intended use of the government property. ( U.C. Weapons Labs, supra, 154 Cal.App.3d at p. 1164; see Prisoners Union v. Department of Corrections, supra, 135 Cal.App.3d at p. 935.) The court decided there was no basic incompatibility between the visitors center's functioning as a venue for disseminating information to the public, and the display and distribution of literature protesting Livermore Laboratory's nuclear weapons research. ( U.C. Weapons Labs, at pp. 1168-1169.) On the other hand, the court denied that portion of the preliminary injunction that sought access to Livermore Laboratory's auditorium, which was used primarily for technical group meetings and could not be classified even as a semi-public forum. ( Id. at p. 1170.) SLTA, joined by its amici curiae, argues that under the basic incompatibility test, its position should prevail. They further point to a number of academic articles critical of the United States Supreme Court's public forum doctrine as lacking intellectual coherence and being insufficiently protective of free speech. (See Farber & Nowak, supra, 70 Va. L.Rev. at p. 1219; Massey, Public Fora, Neutral Governments, and the Prism of Property (1999) 50 Hastings L.J. 309.) On the other hand, as the Court of Appeal pointed out below, this basic incompatibility test has not been found in California appellate cases since U.C. Weapons Labs. The court also pointed out that the concept of basic incompatibility is used in First Amendment analysis after it has been decided that the government property in question is a public forum, to determine whether a given regulation constitutes a reasonable time, place or manner restriction. (See Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) 408 U.S. 104, 116 [33 L.Ed.2d 222, 92 S.Ct. 2294].) In any event, U.C. Weapons Labs is distinguishable from the present case. In the former case, the primary purpose of the visitors center was the dissemination of information about the laboratory and its work. ( U.C. Weapons Labs, supra, 154 Cal.App.3d at p. 1168.) The court determined that the government had no legitimate interest in monopolizing the dissemination of information about the laboratory on that site. ( Id. at pp. 1168-1169.) In the present case, the District is not attempting to monopolize speech regarding political endorsements in mailboxes, but rather has determined, pursuant to statutory directive, to disallow use of mailboxes for one-sided political endorsements. As discussed in the previous section of this opinion, this prohibition on the use of government resources for political campaigning is a means of promoting an important government interest, i.e., maintaining the integrity of the electoral process by neutralizing any advantage that those with special access to government resources might possess. (See Stanson, supra, 17 Cal.3d at pp. 217-218; Vargas v. City of Salinas, supra, 46 Cal.4th at pp. 23-24.) (20) Again, we emphasize the narrow reach of our holding. Political speech is `at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.' ( Morse v. Frederick (2007) 551 U.S. 393 [168 L.Ed.2d 290, 127 S.Ct. 2618, 2626].) Neither the First Amendment nor the free speech clause of the California Constitution, nor, as discussed, California statutory law, countenances undue restriction on the political speech of teachers or their unions. But we hold the District may constitutionally determine pursuant to section 7054 that internal school mailboxes should be kept free of literature containing endorsements of political candidates.