Court Opinion

ID: 9430343
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:32.848803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.132702
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I join Justice Powell’s opinion, but think we need not go beyond the authority of Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), to decide this case. I would not go beyond the central question presented by this case, which is the infringement of Pacific’s right to be free from forced association with views with which it disagrees. I would also rely on that part of Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974), holding that a forced right of reply violates a newspaper’s right to be free from forced dissemination of views it would not voluntarily disseminate, just as we held that Maynard must be free from being forced by the State to disseminate views with which he disagreed. To compel Pacific to mail messages for others cannot be distinguished from compelling it to carry the messages of others on its trucks, its buildings, or other property used in the conduct of its business. For purposes of this case, those properties cannot be distinguished from property like the mailing envelopes acquired by Pacific from its income and resources.