Participatory democracy as the central value of american free speech doctrine

Virginia Law Review

Volumn 97, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 491-514

  Weinstein, James ^a  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 79961237513     PISSN: 00426601     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (87)

1. Barry P. McDonald, Government Regulation or Other "Abridgments" of Scientific Research: The Proper Scope of Judicial Review Under the First Amendment, 54 Emory L.J. 979, 1009 (2005). For other statements of the all-inclusive approach, or variations of it
2. see John E. Nowak & Ronald D. Rotunda, Constitutional Law 1226 (6th ed. 2000)
3. Eugene Volokh, The First Amendment: Problems, Cases, and Policy Arguments 2 (2001)
4. For recent Supreme Court dicta reciting a version of the all-inclusive approach, see United States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 1584-85 (2010).
5. See James Weinstein, Hate Speech, Pornography and the Radical Attack on Free Speech Doctrine 40-43 (1999)
6. James Weinstein, Institutional Review Boards and the Constitution, 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. 493, 535-36 (2007)
7. See Frederick Schauer, The Boundaries of the First Amendment: A Preliminary Exploration of Constitutional Salience, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 1765, 1768, 1778-84 (2003)
8. James Weinstein, Speech Categorization and the Limits of First Amendment Formalism: Lessons from Nike v. Kasky, 54 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 1091, 1097-98 (2004)
9. See Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557, 562-63 (1980).
10. See City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 48-49 (1986).
11. See Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 46 (1983).
12. Robert C. Post, The Constitutional Concept of Public Discourse: Outrageous Opinion, Democratic Deliberation, and Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 603, 604 (1990)
13. James Weinstein, Participatory Democracy as the Basis of American Free Speech Doctrine: A Reply, 97 Va. L. Rev. 633, 637-39 (2011)
14. See, e.g., Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147 (1983)
15. See, e.g., Jackson v. Bailey, 605 A.2d 1350, 1359 (Conn. 1992)
16. See, e.g., Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 403 (2007).
17. See Robert C. Post, Constitutional Domains: Democracy, Community, Management 200-01 (1995).
18. See N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 283 (1964).
19. See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 346 (1974).
20. See Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 760-61 (1985)
21. Robert C. Post, Recuperating First Amendment Doctrine, 47 Stan. L. Rev. 1249, 1276 (1995).
22. Differing slightly from Post's formulation of this important structural insight, I have written that it is "presumed" rather than "assumed" that each instance of speech in a constitutionally protected medium is protected. See James Weinstein, Democracy, Sex and the First Amendment, 31 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 865, 874 (2007)
23. U.S. 49, 69 (1973)
24. See Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557, 562-63 (1980)
25. Compare Playboy Entm't Group v. United States, 529 U.S. 803, 811 (2000)
26. City of Erie v. Pap's A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 301-02 (2000)
27. See United States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 1584-85 (2010).
28. See Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. 214, 218 (1966)
29. Masses Publ'g Co. v. Patten, 244 F. 535, 540 (S.D.N.Y. 1917).
30. See Robert C. Post, Racist Speech, Democracy, and the First Amendment, 32 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 267, 282 (1991).
31. See, e.g., Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995)
32. See First Nat'l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 791-92 (1978)
33. See Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 403 (2007)
34. see also Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207, 1215
35. See Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously xi (1977)
36. See Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 365-67 (2003)
37. This view was famously expounded by Alexander Meiklejohn in Free Speech And Its Relation To Self-Government 25 (1948).
38. First Nat'l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978)
39. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 604 (1982).
40. See, e.g., McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 205 (2003)
41. Austin v. Mich. Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652, 660 (1990)
42. Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 34-35 (1984
43. These restrictions applied only within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election, 2 U.S.C. § 434(f)(3)(A) (2006), and, additionally, had previously been interpreted to apply only to advertisements unmistakably urging the support or defeat of a candidate.
44. See FEC v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 476 (2007). The conclusion that these restrictions unduly curtailed or distorted the information needed by the citizenry to make informed decisions seems difficult to justify, especially in light of the ability of corporations to speak through political action committees during these restricted periods.
45. See 2 U.S.C. § 441b(b)(2) (2006).
46. See Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
47. C. Edwin Baker, First Amendment Limits on Copyright, 55 Vand. L. Rev. 891, 897 (2002).
48. See, e.g., Red Lion Broad. Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969).
49. See Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 204 (2003).
50. See, e.g., C. Edwin Baker, Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech 47 (1989)
51. Martin H. Redish, The Value of Free Speech, 130 U. Pa. L. Rev. 591, 625-29 (1982)
52. David A.J. Richards, Free Speech and Obscenity Law: Toward a Moral Theory of the First Amendment, 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 45, 59-70 (1975
53. Seana V. Shiffrin, Speech, Death, and Double Effect, 78 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1135, 1158-85 (2003).
54. see James Weinstein, Introduction, 97 Va. L. Rev. vii, viii (2011)
55. See James Weinstein, Seana Shiffrin's Thinker- Based Theory of Free Speech: Elegant and Insightful, but Will it Work in Practice? 27 Const. Comment. (forthcoming 2011)
56. See Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 722 (1997
57. See Va. State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 765 (1976). Unlike the Court and Post, I am not persuaded that ordinary commercial advertising is instrumentally related to democratic governance in any significant way.
58. See Robert Post, The Constitutional Status of Commercial Speech, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1, 25 (2000). Ordinary commercial advertising can, however, significantly promote individual economic decision making, and therefore restrictions on such expression have the potential to unduly interfere with individual autonomy interests arguably protected by the Constitution. Accordingly, while the First Amendment may provide an acceptable source of protection for this interest, grounding a right to receive commercial information in the liberty provision of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments under the Court's substantive due process jurisprudence would, in my view, more accurately reflect the essence of the interest involved and thus helpfully expose the danger of "Lochnerizing" raised by extending overly rigorous protection to this interest.
59. See Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 57 (1905) (invalidating state law forbidding employment of bakers for more than ten hours a day or sixty hours a week).
60. Va. State Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U.S. at 763-64. It remains to be seen how the Court will reconcile protection of commercial speech under this rationale with its adamant refusal since 1937 to directly afford any meaningful protection under its substantive due process jurisprudence to private economic decision making.
61. See, e.g., Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557, 566 (1980).
62. Frank Michelman, Law's Republic, 97 Yale L.J. 1493, 1500 (1988).
63. See Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 369 (1931) ("The maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system.").
64. See Robert Post, Meiklejohn's Mistake: Individual Autonomy and the Reform of Public Discourse, 64 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1109, 1114-19 (1993).
65. Alexander Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government 27 (1948).
66. Seana Shiffrin has proposed a theory based on the promotion of individual autonomy interests that, in my view, might indeed be as widely accepted and uncontentious as the commitment to the individual right to participate in the political process on which my theory is based. See Seana Valentine Shiffrin, A Thinker-Based Approach to Freedom of Speech, 27 Const. Comment. (forthcoming 2011). For the reasons stated in the text, I count this as an enormous advantage for a free speech theory. But as explained in my critique of her theory, it is unlikely to yield doctrine robust enough to adequately protect speech that abrasively challenges the status quo
67. See C. Edwin Baker, Autonomy and Free Speech, 27 Const. Comment. (forthcoming 2011).
68. See Jeffrie G. Murphy, Legal Moralism and Liberalism, 37 Ariz. L. Rev. 73, 75 (1995) (quoting Joel Feinberg, Some Unswept Debris from the Hart-Devlin Debate, 72 Synthese 249 (1987)).
69. See City of Erie v. Pap's A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 289-302 (2000) (Rehnquist, C.J., and O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ.) (upholding ban); id. at 316-17, 326-32 (Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., dissenting) (finding ban unconstitutional).
70. City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425, 442-43 (2002) (Rehnquist, C.J., and O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ.) (rejecting First Amendment challenge to the regulation); id. at 462-66 (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, J.J., dissenting) (finding regulation unconstitutional). And it is differing visions of the nature and constitutional strength of individual autonomy interests that account for the split between the liberal and conservative justices in other areas of the law, such as abortion rights.
71. e.g., Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the right to die.
72. Cruzan v. Dir., Mo. Dep't of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990), and the right to engage in homosexual sex.
73. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
74. See, e.g., Thompson v. W. States Med. Ctr., 535 U.S. 357, 368-77 (2002) (O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ.) (striking down allegedly paternalistic FDA speech regulation); id. at 378-90 (Rehnquist, C.J., and Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., dissenting) (voting to sustain the regulation)
75. Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525, 561-66 (2001) (Rehnquist, C.J., and O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, JJ.) (invalidating ban on advertising of tobacco products within 1000 feet of a school or playground
76. See James Madison, Virginia Resolutions, in 4 Jonathan Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 569-70 (Washington, Jonathan Elliot 1836) (stating that "[t]he people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty").
77. Thomas Scanlon, A Theory of Freedom of Expression, 1 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 204, 209 (1972).
78. Thomas Scanlon, Freedom of Expression and Categories of Expression, 40 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 519, 532 (1979).
79. See First Nat'l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 791-92 (1978) ("[T]he people in our democracy are entrusted with the responsibility for judging and evaluating the relative merits of conflicting arguments . . . . [I]f there be any danger that the people cannot evaluate the information and arguments[,] . . . it is a danger contemplated by the Framers of the First Amendment.").
80. See supra text accompanying notes 49-63. As mentioned, the problem with such ad hoc balancing is that it can lead to judges invalidating laws with which they fervently disagree but which do not in fact infringe important free speech interests. A partial solution to this problem would be to place a heavy burden on those challenging laws that do not implicate the core democratic right of participation to show that important secondary interests have been unduly infringed. Such an approach is close to the one the Court actually took in cases challenging restriction on corporate political expenditures until taking a wrong turn in Federal Elections Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007) and then driving off a cliff in Citizens United, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010). See supra note 53.
81. Cf. Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447, 456 (1978) ("To require a parity of constitutional protection for commercial and noncommercial speech alike could invite dilution, simply by a leveling process, of the force of the [First] Amendment's guarantee with respect to the latter kind of speech.").
82. See James Weinstein, Free Speech, Abortion Access, and the Problem of Judicial Viewpoint Discrimination, 29 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 471, 481-85 (1996).
83. Regina v. Keegstra, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 697
84. See also Robert C. Post, Participatory Democracy and Free Speech, 97 Va. L. Rev. 477, 478 (2011).
85. Cf. Eric Barendt, Freedom of Speech 174-75 (2d ed. 2005)
86. See N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80 (1964).
87. See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).