Court Opinion

ID: 9754786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:13:54.899812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:57.545327
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
¶34. dissenting. In implementing the vanity plate program, DMV found itself caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the agency was empowered to deny “any [vanity plate] request that might be offensive or confusing to the general public.” 23 V.S.A. § 304(d) (emphasis added). On the other hand, federal courts interpreting the First Amendment hold that government restrictions on speech that discriminate on the basis of viewpoint are unconstitutional. *93The agency had to develop a method of implementing the vanity plate program that would enable it to refuse potentially offensive plate applications yet would not be arbitrary or appear to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. Put plainly, the Commissioner had to avoid the viewpoint discrimination that would result if she allowed “IRISH” but rejected “NOIRISH” or “MICK.” Promulgating a regulation that banned certain topics altogether as potentially “offensive or confusing” was very likely the only reasonable way the agency could implement the Legislature’s vanity plate program while complying with the statute and First Amendment requirements. This is what the trial court held, and it should be affirmed. I respectfully dissent.
¶35. The majority narrowly confines this case to a question of administrative law: whether the Commissioner of DMV, in prohibiting ethnic references on vanity plates, has promulgated a regulation in conflict with the statute, because the plate challenged here, “IRISH,” cannot be considered offensive. Its premise is that the statute is unambiguous and therefore affords no discretion to the Commissioner to fill in the blanks, so to speak, even if the reason for filling in the blanks is to comply with the Constitution.
¶ 36. Where I depart from the majority is that it is hard for me to conceive of a more ambiguous statute than the one before us. The statute provides no definition for two key terms: “offensive” and “confusing.” This Court has held that “words in a statute without definition are to be given their plain and commonly accepted use.” Shetland Props., Inc. v. Town of Poultney, 145 Vt. 189, 194, 484 A.2d 929, 932 (1984) (internal quotations omitted). The words “offensive” and “confusing,” however, are susceptible to a variety of meanings, and 23 V.S.A. § 304(d) allows the agency to reject requests that are not necessarily offensive or confusing, but “might he.” The Commissioner, therefore, has considerable discretion to interpret the statute in a way that is reasonable. See In re Smith, 169 Vt. 162, 169, 730 A.2d 605, 611 (1999) (“[WJhere a statute is silent or ambiguous regarding a particular matter this Court will defer to agency interpretation of a statute within its area of expertise as long as it represents a permissible construction of the statute.”). See also Solid Waste Agency of N. Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Eng’rs, 531 U.S. 159, 172-73 (2001) (holding that when Congress intends for an agency to implement a statute in a way that risks unconstitutionality, the Court “expect[s] a clear indication that Congress intended that result____[because of] our prudential desire not to needlessly reach constitutional issues and our assumption that Congress does not casually authorize administrative *94agencies to interpret a statute to push the limit of congressional authority”).
¶ 37. When interpreting statutes, moreover, agencies are required by law to follow controlling judicial precedents. Nat’l Labor Relations Bd. v. Ashkenazy Prop. Mgmt. Corp., 817 F.2d 74, 75 (9th Cir. 1987) (“Administrative agencies are not free to refuse to follow circuit precedent in cases originating within the circuit [without] good faith intention of seeking review of the particular proceeding by the Supreme Court.”). Agencies must heed constitutional restrictions in part because reviewing courts will do so, and an agency that acts without considering the constitutional implications of its policy risks having the offending policy or regulation stricken following judicial review. Between a construction of the vanity plate statute that renders it constitutional and one that creates substantial constitutional doubt, “we are required to take the path that results in clear constitutionality.” Apache Survival Coalition v. United States, 21 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir. 1994); see also Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U.S. 142, 148 (1927) (“[A]s between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.”) (Holmes, J., concurring).
¶ 38. The majority opinion envisions an exceedingly unwieldy system of administrative law, under which courts alone are allowed to consider constitutional principles and to “narrow the reach of a broadly-worded statute... to avoid serious questions of constitutionality.” In re G.T., 170 Vt. 507, 517, 758 A.2d 301, 308 (2000). If this framework were implemented literally, agencies would interpret statutes without considering constitutional limitations, and citizens whose fundamental rights were abridged would need to bring the offending agencies to court to vindicate their rights. The deficiencies in this unworkable system are exacerbated by the majority’s position that it will find regulations invalid but it will never advise the agency on what regulation will be found valid. In the context of the particular statute before us today, the majority’s opinion guarantees that we will see the legality of the state’s vanity plate program litigated over and over again as the state experiments with different methods of drawing the line between offensive and nonoffensive, without any definitive guidance from this Court and with each line offensive to a different plaintiff.
¶ 39. I agree with the majority that an agency has no authority to choose an interpretation of a statute that is not reasonably available. See Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 471 (2001) (“No matter how severe the constitutional doubt, courts may choose only between *95reasonably available interpretations of a text.”); In re Agency of Admin., 141 Vt. 68, 74-75, 444 A.2d 1349, 1352 (1982) (“[C]onstruction of statutes by those charged with their execution will be followed unless there are compelling indications that the construction is wrong”). If the vanity plate statute had unambiguously directed that DMV reject only those applications for vanity plates that were actually offensive, DMV probably would not have been permitted to establish categorical prohibitions based on subject matter, as it has done. Unlike the agency in American Trucking, DMV is not interpreting a statute in a way that “contradicts what in our view is quite clear.” 531 U.S. at 481. On the contrary, DMV regulation, at least insofar as it pertains to references to ethnicity, is a permissible interpretation of the vanity plate statute’s prohibition on plates that might cause offense or confusion.
¶ 40. To the extent that the majority insists that the vanity plate statute must be construed as written without reference to authoritative constitutional decisions, the majority is advocating an approach to statutory construction that conflicts with the approach taken by the United States Supreme Court in construing state statutes imposing restrictions on free speech. In the context of a facial challenge to a state obscenity statute, the Supreme Court reads the statute in conjunction with authoritative state and federal decisions. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the Supreme Court presumes that the state law will be applied in accordance with the limitations articulated by court precedents. The classic example of this analysis in the First Amendment context is the case Ward v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 767 (1977), where the United States Supreme Court upheld an Illinois obscenity statute that would have been unconstitutionally overbroad if it had not been construed to incorporate judicial precedents. An earlier case, Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973), had established a requirement that a state obscenity law “as written or authoritatively construed” (emphasis added) had to delineate with specificity the kinds of sexual conduct the description or representation of which the state intended to proscribe. In its Ward decision, the United States Supreme Court held that the Illinois statute was not unconstitutionally overbroad even though the statute on its face failed to identify specifically the kinds of sexual conduct the depiction of which was to be prohibited. Ward, 431 U.S. at 774-76. The Supreme Court found that because prior decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court incorporated the Miller guidelines into the obscenity statute, the Illinois statute was constitutional. Ward, 431 U.S. at 776-77.
¶ 41. I read Ward to stand for the proposition that rulings of federal courts and this Court are relevant to the appropriate construction of the *96vanity plate statute. Authoritative judicial decisions are relevant and should guide an agency’s discretion when interpreting a statute that is ambiguous. Of special relevance for Vermont’s vanity plate program is a Second Circuit decision examining whether Vermont’s vanity plate restrictions represent an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. This decision, Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d 159, 169-70, 172-73 (2d Cir. 2001), holds that any speech restrictions in the context of vanity plates must be viewpoint neutral, supporting DMVs interpretation of the statute.
¶ 42. The decision in Perry makes clear that the free speech interests at stake in vanity plates are limited. “Because vanity plates are physically restricted by size and shape and by the state’s interests, including that of vehicle identification, vanity plates are a highly limited and extremely constrained means of expression.” Id. at 168. Nevertheless, whenever the government becomes involved in limiting expression in any way, First Amendment concerns become paramount. Federal courts have developed an analytical method known as “forum analysis” to determine what types of speech restrictions are permissible. Under forum analysis, all government property is classified as a nonpublic forum, a designated publicforum, or a public forum. See, e.g., Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 802 (1985); Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators ’Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45-46 (1983); Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 166. Whether a speech restriction is permissible depends upon what kind of forum is in play.
¶ 43. The Second Circuit reviewed Vermont’s vanity plate program in 2001, and concluded that Vermont vanity plates are a nonpublic forum, as opposed to a public forum, for the following reasons. Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 167. First, the stated goal of Vermont in issuing vanity plates, and all license.plates, is to aid in vehicle identification. Id. Second, Vermont’s vanity plate program is designed to earn revenue, not to provide Vermonters with a venue for public expression. Id. Third, expression on vanity plates is subject to many restrictions, such as limitations on the number of letters that can appear on a plate and the 23 V.S.A. § 304(d) provision allowing the Commissioner to deny a request for a special plate that might be considered “offensive or confusing to the general public.” Id. at 167-68. Fourth, the statute requires that Vermonters obtain permission from the State to obtain a vanity plate, rather than allowing them to obtain a plate automatically. Id. at 166. Once vanity plates have been found to be a nonpublic forum, forum analysis defines what speech limits are tolerated by the Constitution. In a nonpublic forum, restrictions on expressive activity are allowed as long as *97they are reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Perry Educ. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 46; Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 800; Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 166.7
¶ 44. The reasonableness standard is easily met in the case of vanity plates. The interest of the State in not alienating members of the public who see government property being used to send a message they find offensive or confusing is sufficient. Because the vanity plate restrictions do not prevent motor vehicle owners from communicating messages on their automobiles through the use of bumper stickers, the State can demonstrate that the regulation is reasonably “directed not to suppressing, but to disassociating the [state] from, [plaintiff’s] speech.” Gen. Media Communications, Inc. v. Cohen, 131 F.3d 273, 281 n.10 (2d Cir. 1997); see also Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 169-70.
¶ 45. Having found the regulation reasonable, viewpoint neutrality is left as the principal limitation on the government’s discretion to limit speech in a nonpublic forum.8 See L. Jacobs, The Public Sensibilities *98Forum, 95 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1357, 1371-72 (2001). Viewpoint neutrality is a difficult hurdle for the government, and it is concern with meeting this requirement that led DMV to issue the regulation banning all ethnic terms that is at issue in this case.
¶ 46. The Second Circuit has interpreted viewpoint neutrality as permitting the government to prohibit speech on a particular subject, as long as the government does not prohibit the expression of particular views about otherwise permissible subjects. Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 170 (explaining that “the government may reasonably restrict expressive activity in a nonpublic forum on the basis of content, but not on the basis of the speaker’s viewpoint”).9 See also Lebron v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp., 69 F.3d 650, 658-59 (2d Cir. 1995) (upholding Amtrak’s categorical ban on political advertising on an Amtrak-owned billboard as permissible because ban covers entire subject rather than being used to screen out only certain views). Although categorical bans have been held to be viewpoint neutral, the line between viewpoint regulation and content regulation is not always clear. The Supreme Court has noted that viewpoint regulation is an impermissible form of content discrimination, suggesting that there is no “either-or” distinction but, instead, that certain types of content restrictions are unlawful as viewpoint discrimination. *99Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995) (“Viewpoint discrimination is... an egregious form of content discrimination. The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.”).
¶ 47. As the maj ority in Rosenberger observed, the distinction between content and viewpoint discrimination “is not a precise one.” Id. at 881. This imprecision makes for unclear law, inconsistent decisions, and as the case before us today demonstrates, creates uncertainty about the constitutionality of government programs. Nowhere is the murkiness of the term viewpoint neutrality more apparent than in a review of case law involving vanity plates where state governments have unsuccessfully tried to defend rules restricting plate content. See Lewis v. Wilson, 253 F.3d 1077, 1080-82 (8th Cir. 2001) (striking Missouri statute prohibiting plates that are “contrary to public policy” as discriminating on the basis of viewpoint and ordering state to issue ARYAN plate); Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. v. Holcomb, 129 F. Supp. 2d 941, 946 (W.D. Va. 2001) (finding impermissible viewpoint-based discrimination in a Virginia statute that had prevented the Sons of Confederate Veterans from placing their logo, which incorporates the Confederate battle flag, on a specialty license plate); Pruitt v. Wilder, 840 F. Supp. 414, 417-19 (E.D. Va. 1994) (ordering state to issue “GODZGUD” plate despite ban on references to deities because barring references to deities while allowing other types of religious speech discriminates on the basis of the speaker’s viewpoint).
¶ 48. None of these vanity plate decisions provides a clear definition for the term “viewpoint discrimination.”10 Two general principles can be gleaned from them, however, about the factors that courts look to as indications of possible viewpoint neutrality violations. First, the more specific a prohibition is within a broad category, the more likely it is to be viewpoint discrimination instead of a permissible content restriction (i.e., religious speech can be banned entirely, but references to deities only has been found to violate viewpoint neutrality). Second, the government must *100provide procedural protections to ensure that its agencies do not engage in viewpoint discrimination.
¶ 49. The term “viewpoint neutral” is probably a source of more confusion than clarity in judicial decisions. Nevertheless, my reading of the case law leads me to conclude that DMVs regulation banning all references to ethnicity on vanity plates meets the test for viewpoint neutrality. The regulation provides a crystal-clear standard for DMV staff to use in evaluating plate applications, preventing possible bias towards one ethnicity or another by banning them all. The motivation for the ban is not to insult a particular ethnicity but simply to take a controversial area of discourse off of state-issued license plates. By banning all references to ethnicity, the agency has ensured that decisions will not be arbitrary or viewpoint-based.
¶ 50. The majority never proposes a method that DMV could use to evaluate vanity plates that would both ensure that all rejected plates were “offensive” (in whatever sense the Legislature intended in § 304(d)) and ensure viewpoint neutrality. The majority proposes that DMV “may establish lists of combinations of numbers and letters that might be offensive... [and] exclude entire categories comprised exclusively of words that might offend the general public.” Ante, at ¶ 31. The majority's proposal effectively throws viewpoint neutrality out the window. Any list would reflect the viewpoint of its makers as to where to draw the lines in terms of what terms are ethnic insults and what terms are positive expressions of pride.
¶ 51. The Legislature has not specifically indicated to DMV that it wishes the agency to ignore the First Amendment in implementing the vanity plate program. Given the requirements of viewpoint neutrality, DMV was justified in promulgating a regulation that took certain categories containing potentially offensive terms off the table.
¶ 52. I am authorized to state that Justice Dooley joins in this dissent.

 If I were writing at a time before nonpublic forum analysis became an entrenched part of First Amendment case law, I would not impose the First Amendment protections that the Second Circuit and the United States Supreme Court have determined are necessary for a nonpublic forum upon Vermont’s vanity plate program. The vanity plate program is the State’s program, aimed at makingmoney and identiiyingvehicles, not at providing aforumfor meaningful speech. As the Second Circuit stated, “[a]utomobile license plates are governmental property intended primarily to serve a governmental purpose, and inevitably they will be associated with the state that issues them____The state has a legitimate interest in not communicating the message that it approves of the public display of offensive... terms on state license plates.” Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 169. Accord Higgins v. DMV, 13 P.3d 531, 534 (Or. Ct. App. 2000) (en banc) (“[T]he opportunity to propose a message does not change the fact that the plates constitute a state communication for a state purpose____”). Moreover, I do not find the speech interest compelling because prohibiting a term on a vanity plate does not prevent vehicle owners from conveying the same message through a bumper sticker affixed to their car. Bumper stickers have historically provided Vermonters with a much more expressive forum than vanity plates, and Vermonters have shown no reluctance to use them to make humorous, political, and religious statements. For a thoughtful analysis of the limits of such a “public sensibilities forum,” see L. Jacobs, The Public Sensibilities Forum, 95 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1357, 1436 (2001) (proposing that in contexts such as vanity plates where the govemmentis creating a speech opportunity and an unwillingaudience will likely viewthe resulting communication, the government and the public it serves should not be required to tolerate “the same range of ‘outrageous’ speech” that they must in other contexts as long as appropriate procedural safeguards are implemented).

 Appellant cites R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382 (1992), for the proposition that “[c]ontent-based regulations are presumptively invalid,” but this case is not on point because it does not involve a nonpublic forum. Cf. Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 800 (noting that “the Court has adopted a forum analysis as a means of determining when the Government’s interest in limiting the use of its property to its intended purpose outweighs the interest of those wishing to use the property for other purposes” and that “[ajccess to a nonpublic forum... can be *98restricted as long as the restrictions ... [are] not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s view.” (internal quotations omitted)).

 The majority emphasizes the parts of the Perry v. McDonald decision recognizing § 304(d)’s reference to “offensive” plates. It asserts that nothing in Perry v. McDonald precludes the agency from including offensiveness among the criteria for rejecting plates. I agree that the Second Circuit does not pass judgment on exactly how DMV must interpret its vanity plate regulation to ensure that the regulation passes constitutional muster in cases less egregious then a license plate bearing a profanity. Perry v. McDonald is unwavering, however, in its insistence that in a nonpublic forum such as state-issued vanity plates, Vermont cannot restrict expression on the basis of viewpoint. Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d at 167, 169-70, 172-73. So the question becomes, how does DMV figure outwhat policies would ensure that it does not engage in unconstitutional viewpoint-based discrimination? Perry v. McDonald is not the end of the story and does not control the outcome of this case. What it does do is provide DMV with a legal basis for interpreting its vanity plate regulations in a way that is intended to conform as closely as possible with existing case law on viewpoint neutrality. Whether DMV has an adequate basis for the regulation is subject to review by state courts, as we are asked to do today. Because I find that free speech considerations are inextricably intertwined with the issues at stake in this case, I would recognize DMVs obligation to look at decisions such as Perry v. McDonald as it develops its vanity plate regulatory program for judicial guidelines on what is meant by viewpoint neutrality. While Perry v. McDonald does suggest that DMV may consider “offensiveness” in distinguishing between “cute” scatological terms and profanities, id. at 169, 170-71, the regulation on ethnicity approaches much more sensitive areas of speech, bound up with identity, and thus the ability of the agency to consider “offensiveness” in this context while maintaining viewpoint neutrality is more doubtful.

 Nor can a clear definition be found in the United States Supreme Court’s nonpublic forum jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has split repeatedly over the proper application of the requirement of viewpoint neutrality since the concept was introduced as the required standard for a nonpublic forum. See Perry Educ. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 49, 64-65 (5-4 decision) (split over whether discrimination on the basis of the identity of speaker constitutes viewpoint discrimination); Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 194, 209 (1991) (5-4 decision) (split over whether gag rule imposed on recipients of federal funding was viewpoint discrimination); Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 831, 893 (5-4 decision) (split over whether denial of subsidies by a public university to a religious student organization is impermissible viewpoint discrimination).