ABSTRACT

This essay responds to the holding in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra (2018), arguing that the signal contribution of the majority opinion is its attempt to move commercial speech further into the absolute realm of protected public discourse. In finding the California FACT Act to be unconstitutional, the 5–4 majority uses a fractured commercial speech standard to define NIFLA’s marketplace communications as protected ideological speech. In so doing, Justice Thomas, author of the majority opinion, considers only the state’s speech – its compelled disclosures – and does not assess the rhetorical properties of NIFLA’s commercial communications. But the majority concludes nevertheless that NIFLA’s speech is impervious to publicly interested legislation, despite well-documented evidence of misleading and harmful advertising. Ultimately, it is argued that the question of whether NIFLA’s right to free speech has been violated cannot be squarely addressed if the speech with which the state’s disclosures dialogue remains nebulous. NIFLA seems to undermine the longstanding conception of commercial speech as a form that legitimates both the interests of speakers and the informational interests of publics, with the latter sustained when necessary by governmental initiatives that enable informed choice-making by regulating deceptive information in commercial marketplaces.

摘要

本文回应了美国家庭和生活倡导者协会（NIFLA）诉Becerra案的判决（2018），认为多数意见的信号贡献是它试图将商业言论进一步移入受保护的公共话语的绝对领域。为了认定《加州FACT法案》违宪，5–4多数人使用零散的商业言论标准将NIFLA的市场交流定义为受保护的意识形态言论。这样做时，多数意见书的作者托马斯大法官仅考虑该州的讲话（其强制性的披露），而没有评估NIFLA商业通讯的言辞性质。但是，大多数人得出的结论是，尽管有充分的证据证明存在误导性和有害广告的证据，但NIFLA的讲话对公众感兴趣的立法是不透明的。最终，NIFLA似乎破坏了长期以来的商业言论概念，这种形式既使演讲者的利益与公众的信息利益均合法化，后者又在必要时通过政府举措得以维持，该举措可通过调节商业市场中的欺骗性信息来做出明智的选择。