Opinion ID: 627152
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subsections 399b(a)(2) and (a)(3)

Text: The outcome is different for subsections 399b(a)(2) and (a)(3), which proscribe public issue and political advertising. As we explain, there is simply no evidence in the record  much less substantial evidence in the record before Congress at the time of the statute's enaction, Turner II, 520 U.S. at 211, 117 S.Ct. 1174  to connect the ban on this speech to the government's interest in maintaining certain types of programming. Moreover, there is no evidence that public issue and political advertisements, which are banned, are more harmful than advertisements for goods and services by non-profits, which are allowed. Discovery Network, 507 U.S. at 425, 113 S.Ct. 1505. As previously discussed, we accept Congress's conclusion that commercial advertisers seek the largest audience possible, and that, were public broadcast stations permitted to transmit commercial advertisements without restriction, such stations would seek to make themselves more attractive to advertisers by broadcasting programs with mass-market appeal. But neither logic nor evidence supports the notion that public issue and political advertisers are likely to encourage public broadcast stations to dilute the kind of noncommercial programming whose maintenance is the substantial interest that would support the advertising bans. To take two key examples: the government cites ample evidence that public television provides more public affairs programming and children's and family programming than advertiser supported stations do. It is easy to see how the ban on commercial advertisements in subsection 399b(a)(1) is narrowly tailored to further the governmental interest in preserving such niche programming. But the connection between a ban on public issue and political advertisements and the interest of promoting niche programming is, to put it generously, tenuous  and a tenuous connection is not enough to survive intermediate scrutiny. The restriction must be narrowly tailored and there must be substantial evidence that supports the restrictions. Consider first the effect of the ban on public issue and political advertisements on the nature and prevalence of children's educational programming. There is virtually no way that these advertisements, if allowed, would negatively affect the nature of children's programming on public television stations. After all, the large majority of viewers of these programs are legally prohibited from voting, so there is virtually no incentive for a station to alter its children's programming to suit the preferences of a political candidate or issue group. At the outer reaches of one's imagination, perhaps, lies a potential Saturday morning cartoon featuring an appearance by President Obama or Candidate Romney, Santorum, Paul, or Gingrich, wherein the political personality appears in the episode to fight crime alongside Superman or Batman. It is true that such cartoon would be more likely to exist on a station where the particular candidate is able to run a 30-second political advertisement before and after his world-saving derring-do than on a station where such advertisements are prohibited. But the possibility that such cartoons will replace Sesame Street anytime soon seems quite remote. At best, it is pure speculation, which was never mentioned before Congress. Upholding the ban on public issue and political advertising requires more than speculation. The interest in maintaining public affairs programming of the sort currently seen on public television is a slightly closer case, but the government still fails to carry its burden. There are a few scattered remarks in the record that, with § 399b, Congress wished to insulate public broadcasting from special interest influences  political, commercial, or any other kind. 127 Cong. Rec. 13145 (June 22, 1981) (remarks of Rep. Gonzalez); see also H.R.Rep. No. 97-82, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 16 (1981) (emphasizing the need for insulation of program control and content from the influence of special interests  be they commercial, political, or religious). The temptation of receiving advertising dollars from groups or individuals who wish to air public issue or political advertisements are indeed the types of special interest influences that could distort the nature of public affairs programming offered on public television. Especially in an election season, we see how a news broadcaster may be tempted to alter the content of its public affairs programming if it thinks it can garner additional advertising dollars from one or another campaign, SuperPAC, or advocacy group by doing so. But speculation aside, there is no evidence in the record  much less evidence which was in the record before Congress  to support Congress's specific determination that public issue and political advertisements impact the programming decisions of public broadcast stations to a degree that justifies the comprehensive advertising restriction at issue here. In Turner II, the Supreme Court stated that such evidence must at least include substantial evidence in the record before Congress at the time of the statute's enaction, Turner II, 520 U.S. at 211, 117 S.Ct. 1174. Here, the government fails to point to evidence to support the needed connection between the means of § 399b(a)(2) and (a)(3) (prohibition of public issue and political issue advertisements) and the ends to be achieved (survival of educational programming). For instance, no witness testified to Congress in 1981 as to the relative motivations of public issue and political advertisers when compared to other advertisers. Instead, the only evidence before Congress dealt with the motivations of commercial advertisers or advertisers generally. But the type of advertising proscribed by § 399b(a)(2) and (a)(3) is very different than that proscribed by (a)(1). Further, the only evidence cited by the government in the district court and in its brief to support § 399b(a)(3)'s content-based restriction on political speech was a 2008 article in AdWeek Magazine which stated that $2.2 billion was spent on political campaign advertisements during 2008. The AdWeek article did not provide any figures for the amount of money spent on non-political advertising, so the significance of the $2.2 billion figure is unclear. Additionally, the fact that a large amount of money was spent on political television advertisements in 2008 is not substantial evidence that political advertisers seek a larger audience than do nonprofits advertisers, or that they distort programming decisions by buying advertising time. And a magazine article from 2008 certainly was not substantial evidence [which was] in the record before Congress 27 years earlier, in 1981, when § 399b was enacted. See Turner II, 520 U.S. at 211, 117 S.Ct. 1174. Moreover, there was no evidence presented by the government to justify § 399b(a)(2)'s restriction on public issue speech. Indeed, of the Congressional testimony relied on by the district court in its determination that the statute withstood intermediate scrutiny, it is instructive that two of the three representatives referred explicitly to the threat to public broadcasters of commercialization. John C. DeWitt from the American Foundation for the Blind testified that he was concerned the commercialization of public broadcasting threatened to focus its programming towards the lowest common denominator, rather than diverse audiences, including minorities, women and the print handicapped. Hearings before the Subcomm. on Telecommns, Consumer Protection, and Finance of the H. Comm. on Energy and Commerce on H.R. 3238 and H.R. 2774, 97th Cong. 1st Sess. (1981) (1981 House Hearings.). This does nothing to support the bans in subsections (a)(2) and (a)(3), because public issue and political advertisements pose no threat of commercialization. By definition, such advertisements do not encourage viewers to buy commercial goods and services. A ban on such advertising therefore cannot be narrowly tailored to serve the interest of preventing the commercialization of broadcasting. The district court also cited testimony of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF). AIVF's testimony stated unequivocally that commercialization will make public television indistinguishable from the new commercial or pay culture cable services. And public television will fail. But again, this concern simply does not implicate public issue and political advertisements. [9] Ultimately, the most revealing statement in the government's brief on this point is the following sentence, which contains no citations: Political advertisers are no less capable of exerting influence on programmers than commercial advertisers, and, accordingly, political advertising has never been permitted in public broadcasting. If that preliminary statement of fact about the ability of political advertisers to exert program influence were supported by some evidence  in particular, some evidence before Congress when it enacted the ban  the government could sustain its burden under intermediate scrutiny. But at such a critical point, the government makes only a bare assertion, unsupported by citation to any evidence. The government cannot simply assert its way out of the substantial evidence requirement of the First Amendment. [10] The fact that Congress chose not to ban all advertisements, but left a gap for certain non-profit advertisements, is also fatal to its case under the analysis in Discovery Network, the commercial handbills case. Here, the banned speech (public issue and political advertisements) is analogous to Discovery Network's handbills; the permitted speech (promotional advertisements by nonprofits) is analogous to the Discovery Network's newspapers. And just as the city in Discovery Network was required to prove that handbill-dispensing news-racks posed a greater threat to public safety and esthetics than newspaper-dispensing newsracks, the government here must prove that public issue and political advertisements pose a greater threat to educational programming on public broadcast stations than promotional advertisements on behalf of non-profits. 507 U.S. at 424, 113 S.Ct. 1505. Indeed, the government's burden is even higher here than in Discovery Network, because § 399b disadvantages political speech  bans on which we must be particularly wary. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. at 384, 104 S.Ct. 3106. [11] Recall that the newsracks banned in Discovery Network contained commercial handbills. Applying the Discovery Network standard to § 399b's selective and categorical content-based bans on speech, we find no basis for § 399b's content-based discrimination against public issue and political advertisements. In fact, it stands to reason that both public issue and political advertisers, on the one hand, and nonprofits seeking to advertise for their goods and services, on the other, would generally seek the largest audience possible. A nonprofit university which seeks to attract students through television advertisements would want its advertisements seen by as many potential applicants as possible; so, too, would a Presidential candidate generally want his advertisement viewed by the largest possible audience of voters. Of course, this is a generality: we do not doubt that many advertisers  political and nonpolitical  sometimes target niche markets. A nonprofit group seeking to raise funds for wildlife preservation may choose to spend its money to advertise during nature shows, the better to reach motivated donors. But so might an evangelical Presidential candidate choose to spend his money advertising on religious-themed shows in Iowa in advance of the Iowa caucuses, to increase voter turn-out to his advantage. The point is that in general, there is no reason to think that public issue and political advertisers have any greater propensity to seek large audiences than do non-profit advertisers. Yet Minority and other public television stations may broadcast one type of advertisement but not the other. That is the kind of picking-and-choosing among different types of speech that Congress may not do, absent evidence to show that Congress's favoritism is necessary to serve its substantial interest. Thus, because § 399b's content-based ban on public issue and political advertisements bears no relationship whatsoever to the particular interests that the [government] has asserted, Discovery Network, 507 U.S. at 424, 113 S.Ct. 1505, the statute is not narrowly tailored. Here, as in Discovery Network, there is no basis for the content-based distinction drawn by § 399b. Just as newsracks containing commercial handbills and newsracks containing newspapers posed an identical threat to safety and esthetics, so too, for aught that appears  especially in the Congressional record  do public issue and political advertisers, on the one hand, and non-political, non-profit advertisers on the other pose identical threats to displace niche programs on public broadcast television. The dissent relies on the aforementioned Ozier declaration for the proposition that the content and quantity of nonprofit advertising do not pose the same sort of threat to public broadcasting's financial model as other sorts of advertising. Dissent at 897. But even if the dissent is correct that non-profit advertising in general does not pose the sort of threat that for-profit advertising does, that fact would do nothing to justify 399b's content-based speech restriction within the class of nonprofit advertising. The statute gives Minority the ability to broadcast an advertisement for Planned Parenthood's goods and services but does not allow Minority to broadcast an advertisement stating Planned Parenthood's view on a piece of proposed legislation or a political candidate. That is a crucial content-based distinction  and there is no evidence at all to support it. [12]