Case: 21-51178
Document: 00516474571
Page: 24
Date Filed: 09/16/2022
No. 21-51178
and disincentivized PG&E’s expression by awarding space only to those who
disagreed with PG&E’s speech:
[B]ecause access is awarded only to those who disagree with
appellant’s [PG&E’s] views and who are hostile to appellant’s
interests, appellant must contend with the fact that whenever
it speaks out on a given issue, it may be forced—at [a thirdparty’s] discretion—to help disseminate hostile views.
Appellant “might well conclude” that, under these
circumstances, “the safe course is to avoid controversy,”
thereby reducing the free flow of information and ideas that the
First Amendment seeks to promote.
Id. at 14 (quoting Miami Herald, 418 U.S. at 257).
The plurality also found that the Commission’s order impermissibly
“require[d] [PG&E] to associate with speech with which [it] may disagree.”
Id. at 15. Because the third party could “use the billing envelopes to discuss
any issues it chooses,” PG&E “may be forced either to appear to agree . . .
or to respond.” Ibid. “That kind of forced response is antithetical to the free
discussion that the First Amendment seeks to foster.” Id. at 16.
Finally, the PG&E plurality found PruneYard distinguishable for two
reasons. First, PruneYard did not involve a concern that the challenged law
“might affect the shopping center owner’s exercise of his own right to
speak.” Id. at 12. Second, the right of access at issue in PruneYard was not
content-based. Ibid. 7
7
Justice Marshall provided the fifth vote to invalidate the Commission’s order. See
PG&E, 475 U.S. at 21 (Marshall, J., concurring in the judgment). He emphasized two ways
in which the Commission’s order was different from the law upheld in PruneYard.
First, the right of access created by the Commission was more intrusive than the
one upheld in PruneYard. That’s because the shopping mall owner in PruneYard had
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