Government speech is not subject to anyone’s First Amendment challenges because it has been “subject to democratic accountability.” “Whether a compelled subsidy funds “government speech turns on whether government officials exercise ‘effective control’ over the speech.” the earlier ruling said.
“The district court found that the MOUs provided sufficient control over the speech of the private state beef councils to render that speech “government speech,” and thus bring this aspect of the federal Beef Checkoff program in line with the First Amendment (according to) R- CALF v. Perdue, No. CV-16-41-GF-BMM-JTJ, Dkt. No. 147 D. Mont. May 2, 2016.
But R-CALF believes the USDA failed to get it exactly right. It says in the previous court action USDA was not acting within the “notice-and-comment procedures” of the federal Administrative Procedures Act.
The new complaint says: “This has deprived R-CALF and its members the ability to advance alternative and/or additional reforms to the federal Beef Checkoff program such as adding provisions to the program that”
- (a) grant USDA the ability to appoint or remove board members of the state beef councils;
- (b) give USDA the ability to review the state beef councils’ oral speech;
- (c) prevent the state beef councils’ from funding private third-party speech USDA never reviews;
- (d) prevent the state beef councils from sharing staff and facilities with other private third-parties; and
- (e) require a USDA official to participate in the business meetings of the state beef councils.
“R-CALF has seen that Beef Checkoff expenditures by state beef councils are frequently used to promote the type of speech to which R-CALF objects, including speech that promotes corporate consolidation in the beef industry and advertisements that make no effort to distinguish domestic beef from other beef,” the complaint continues.”...MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment