SCOTUS today decided Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society In’tl, holding 6-2 (per the Chief; Scalia dissenting, joined by Thomas; Kagan recused) that requiring a recipient of federal HIV/AIDS funds to adopt a policy opposing prostitution violates the First Amendment. I don’t have a lot to say about the opinion, other than it is interesting to see Rust v. Sullivan once again discussed as a funding case and not a government-speech case (which it had sort of morphed into). Instead, I just want to draw attention to the language and rhetoric flying around both the majority and dissenting opinions.
Justice Jackson and the 70-year-old Barnette get some love from the Chief. After saying that the program “requires [recipients] to pledge allegiance to the Government’s policy,” Roberts insists that “we cannot improve upon what Justice Jackson wrote for the Court 70 years ago,” going into Jackson’s “fixed star in our constitutional constellation” quotation.
The Chief also throws in his usual turns of phrase–“an offer that cannot be refused”, funding activities “on its own time and dime”, as well as the “pledge allegiance” line above. These are becoming quite common in Roberts opinions, especially his First Amendment cases. I still cannot decide if they are distracting or make for good judicial writing.
Of course, Roberts cannot hold a candle to Justice Scalia in this respect, especially when Scalia is in dissent and is not trying to guide lower courts or hold a coalition together and can go with guns blazing. Thus, the majority “pussyfoots” around the issue of coercion (or lack thereof) in the funding program and it makes a “head-fake” at unconstitutional conditions. The idea behind the limitation–government enlisting the aid of those who support its ideas–is a “matter of the most common common sense.” And the “elephant in the room” is that Government does not really force anyone to do anything by denying funding. (On that last one, I appreciate that Scalia did not mix his metaphors by either making the elephant pink or having it weigh 800 pounds).
Scalia is especially hot in creating hypotheticals. He uses Hamas as an example of an organization that is quite good at distributing public welfare, but reasonably could be excluded from a food-distribution program (even if Hamas were a U.S. organization). Or he insists that a “federal program to encourage healthy eating habits need not be administered by the American Gourmet Society, which has nothing against healthy food but does not insist upon it.” Or note the examples he uses to show that government funding of a particular viewpoint obviously discriminates against those who disagree–“Anti-smoking programs injure cigar aficionados, programs encouraging sexual abstinence injure free-love advocates.” That last one was striking–the opposite of sexual abstinence is free love and not those who recognize sex as a part of any monogamous relationship? And does anyone even use the term “free love” anymore?
Also, recall that last week
Comments
And, if even “affirmative ideological commitments prerequisite to assisting in the government’s work” are okay, a small tax for those who are involved daily in interstate commercial activities should be too.
Posted by: Joe | Jun 20, 2013 1:21:08 PM
“an offer than cannot be refused” is somewhat fitting given the latest celebrity death.
Posted by: Joe | Jun 20, 2013 1:18:50 PM