544 U.S. 550 (2005)

JOHANNS, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, ET AL.
v.
LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSOCIATION ET AL.

No. 03-1164.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued December 8, 2004. Decided May 23, 2005.^[*] CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

*551 SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, THOMAS, and BREYER, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., post, p. 567, and BREYER, J., post, p. 569, filed concurring opinions. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 569. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 570. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and KENNEDY, JJ., joined, post, p. 570.

Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the federal petitioners in No. 03-1164. With him on the briefs in both cases were Acting Solicitor General Clement, *552 Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Irving L. Gornstein, Douglas N. Letter, and Matthew M. Collette.

Gregory G. Garre argued the cause for petitioners in No. 03-1165. With him on the briefs was Lorane F. Hebert.

Laurence H. Tribe argued the cause for respondents in both cases. With him on the brief were Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, Philip Olsson, Ronald A. Parsons, Jr., and Scott N. Heidepriem.^[†]

*553 JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

For the third time in eight years, we consider whether a federal program that finances generic advertising to promote an agricultural product violates the First Amendment. In these cases, unlike the previous two, the dispositive question is whether the generic advertising at issue is the Government's own speech and therefore is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny.

I

A

The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 (Beef Act or Act), 99 Stat. 1597, announces a federal policy of promoting the marketing and consumption of "beef and beef products," using funds raised by an assessment on cattle sales and importation. 7 U.S. C. § 2901(b). The statute directs the Secretary of Agriculture to implement this policy by issuing a Beef Promotion and Research Order (Beef Order or Order), § 2903, and specifies four key terms it must contain: The Secretary is to appoint a Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board (Beef Board or Board), whose members are to be a geographically representative group of beef producers and importers, nominated by trade associations. § 2904(1). The Beef Board is to convene an Operating Committee, composed of 10 Beef Board members and 10 representatives *554 named by a federation of state beef councils. § 2904(4)(A). The Secretary is to impose a $1-per-head assessment (or "checkoff") on all sales or importation of cattle and a comparable assessment on imported beef products. § 2904(8). And the assessment is to be used to fund beef-related projects, including promotional campaigns, designed by the Operating Committee and approved by the Secretary. §§ 2904(4)(B), (C).

The Secretary promulgated the Beef Order with the specified terms. The assessment is collected primarily by state beef councils, which then forward the proceeds to the Beef Board. 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(5) (2004).^[1] The Operating Committee proposes projects to be funded by the checkoff including promotion and research. § 1260.167(a). The Secretary or his designee (see §§ 2.22(a)(1)(viii)(X), 2.79(a)(8)(xxxii)) approves each project and, in the case of promotional materials, the content of each communication. §§ 1260.168(e), 1260.169; App. 114, 143.

The Beef Order was promulgated in 1986 on a temporary basis, subject to a referendum among beef producers on whether to make it permanent. 7 U. S. C. §§ 2903, 2906(a). In May 1988, a large majority voted to continue it. Since that time, more than $1 billion has been collected through the checkoff, 132 F. Supp. 2d 817, 820 (SD 2001), and a large fraction of that sum has been spent on promotional projects authorized by the Beef Act—many using the familiar trademarked slogan "Beef. It's What's for Dinner." App. 50. In fiscal year 2000, for example, the Beef Board collected over $48 million in assessments and spent over $29 million on domestic promotion. The Board also funds overseas marketing efforts; market and food-science research, such as evaluations of the nutritional value of beef; and informational *555 campaigns for both consumers and beef producers. See 7 U. S. C. §§ 2902(6), (9), (15), 2904(4)(B).

Many promotional messages funded by the checkoff (though not all, see App. 52-53) bear the attribution "Funded by America's Beef Producers." E. g., id., at 50-51. Most print and television messages also bear a Beef Board logo, usually a checkmark with the word "BEEF." E. g., id., at 50-52.

B

Respondents are two associations whose members collect and pay the checkoff, and several individuals who raise and sell cattle subject to the checkoff. Id., at 17-19. They sued the Secretary, the Department of Agriculture, and the Board in Federal District Court on a number of constitutional and statutory grounds not before us—in particular, that the Board impermissibly used checkoff funds to send communications supportive of the beef program to beef producers. 132 F. Supp. 2d, at 823. Petitioners in No. 03-1165, a state beef producers' association and two individual producers, intervened as defendants to argue in support of the program. The District Court granted a limited preliminary injunction, which forbade the continued use of checkoff funds to laud the beef program or to lobby for governmental action relating to the checkoff. Id., at 832.

While the litigation was pending, we held in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), that a mandatory checkoff for generic mushroom advertising violated the First Amendment. Noting that the mushroom program closely resembles the beef program,^[2] respondents amended their *556 complaint to assert a First Amendment challenge to the use of the beef checkoff for promotional activity. 207 F. Supp. 2d 992, 996 (SD 2002); App. 30-32. Respondents noted that the advertising promotes beef as a generic commodity, which, they contended, impedes their efforts to promote the superiority of, inter alia, American beef, grain-fed beef, or certified Angus or Hereford beef.

After a bench trial, the District Court ruled for respondents on their First Amendment claim. It declared that the Beef Act and Beef Order unconstitutionally compel respondents to subsidize speech to which they object, and rejected the Government's contention that the checkoff survives First Amendment scrutiny because it funds only government speech. 207 F. Supp. 2d, at 1002-1007. The court entered a permanent injunction barring any further collection of the beef checkoff, even from producers willing to pay (allowing continued collection of voluntary checkoffs, the court thought, would require "rewrit[ing]" the Beef Act). Id., at 1007-1008. Believing that the cost of calculating the share of the checkoff attributable to the compelled subsidy would be too great, the court also declined to order a refund of checkoff funds already collected. Ibid. Finally, the court made permanent its earlier injunction against "producer communications" praising the beef program or seeking to influence governmental policy. Id., at 1008. The court did not rule on respondents' other claims, but certified its resolution of the First Amendment claim as final pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). 207 F. Supp. 2d, at 1008.

The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 335 F. 3d 711 (2003). Unlike the District Court, the Court of Appeals did not dispute that the challenged advertising is government speech; instead, it held that government speech status is relevant only to First Amendment challenges to the speech's content, not to challenges to its compelled funding. See id., at 720-721. Compelled funding of speech, it held, *557 may violate the First Amendment even if the speech in question is the government's. Ibid.

We granted certiorari. 541 U. S. 1062 (2004).

II

We have sustained First Amendment challenges to allegedly compelled expression in two categories of cases: true "compelled-speech" cases, in which an individual is obliged personally to express a message he disagrees with, imposed by the government; and "compelled-subsidy" cases, in which an individual is required by the government to subsidize a message he disagrees with, expressed by a private entity. We have not heretofore considered the First Amendment consequences of government-compelled subsidy of the government's own speech.

We first invalidated an outright compulsion of speech in West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943). The State required every schoolchild to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while saluting the American flag, on pain of expulsion from the public schools. We held that the First Amendment does not "le[ave] it open to public authorities to compel [a person] to utter" a message with which he does not agree. Id., at 634. Likewise, in Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), we held that requiring a New Hampshire couple to bear the State's motto, "Live Free or Die," on their cars' license plates was an impermissible compulsion of expression. Obliging people to "use their private property as a `mobile billboard' for the State's ideological message" amounted to impermissible compelled expression. Id., at 715.

The reasoning of these compelled-speech cases has been carried over to certain instances in which individuals are compelled not to speak, but to subsidize a private message with which they disagree. Thus, although we have upheld state-imposed requirements that lawyers be members of the state bar and pay its annual dues, and that public school *558 teachers either join the labor union representing their "shop" or pay "service fees" equal to the union dues, we have invalidated the use of the compulsory fees to fund speech on political matters. See Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1 (1990); Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977). Bar or union speech with such content, we held, was not germane to the regulatory interests that justified compelled membership, and accordingly, making those who disagreed with it pay for it violated the First Amendment. See Keller, supra, at 15-16; Abood, supra, at 234-235.

These latter cases led us to sustain a compelled-subsidy challenge to an assessment very similar to the beef checkoff, imposed to fund mushroom advertising. United Foods, supra; see 335 F. 3d, at 717 ("[W]e agree with the district court that `[t]he beef checkoff is, in all material respects, identical to the mushroom checkoff'" at issue in United Foods). Deciding the case on the assumption that the advertising was private speech, not government speech, see 533 U. S., at 416-417,^[3] we concluded that Abood and Keller were controlling. As in those cases, mushroom producers were obliged by "law or necessity" to pay the checkoff; although Abood and Keller would permit the mandatory fee if it were "germane" to a "broader regulatory scheme," in *559 United Foods the only regulatory purpose was the funding of the advertising. 533 U. S., at 413, 415-416.

In all of the cases invalidating exactions to subsidize speech, the speech was, or was presumed to be, that of an entity other than the government itself. See Keller, supra, at 11, 15-16; Abood, supra, at 212-213; United Foods, supra, at 416-417; see also Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 229, 230 (2000) (because "[t]he University ha[s] disclaimed that the speech is its own," Abood and Keller "provide the beginning point for our analysis"); cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 851-852 (1995) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) (university's Student Activities Fund likely does not unconstitutionally compel speech because it "represents not government resources . . . but a fund that simply belongs to the students"). Our compelled-subsidy cases have consistently respected the principle that "[c]ompelled support of a private association is fundamentally different from compelled support of government." Abood, supra, at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). "Compelled support of government" — even those programs of government one does not approve—is of course perfectly constitutional, as every taxpayer must attest. And some government programs involve, or entirely consist of, advocating a position. "The government, as a general rule, may support valid programs and policies by taxes or other exactions binding on protesting parties. Within this broader principle it seems inevitable that funds raised by the government will be spent for speech and other expression to advocate and defend its own policies." Southworth, 529 U. S., at 229. We have generally assumed, though not yet squarely held, that compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise First Amendment concerns. See ibid.; Keller, supra, at 12-13; Rosenberger, supra, at 833; see also Wooley, 430 U. S., at 721 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting).

*560 III

Respondents do not seriously dispute these principles, nor do they contend that, as a general matter, their First Amendment challenge requires them to show only that their checkoff dollars pay for speech with which they disagree. Rather, they assert that the challenged promotional campaigns differ dispositively from the type of government speech that, our cases suggest, is not susceptible to First Amendment challenge. They point to the role of the Beef Board and its Operating Committee in designing the promotional campaigns, and to the use of a mandatory assessment on beef producers to fund the advertising. We consider each in turn.

A

The Secretary of Agriculture does not write ad copy himself. Rather, the Beef Board's promotional campaigns are designed by the Beef Board's Operating Committee, only half of whose members are Beef Board members appointed by the Secretary. (All members of the Operating Committee are subject to removal by the Secretary. 7 CFR § 1260.213 (2004).) Respondents contend that speech whose content is effectively controlled by a nongovernmental entity—the Operating Committee—cannot be considered "government speech." We need not address this contention, because we reject its premise: The message of the promotional campaigns is effectively controlled by the Federal Government itself.^[4]

The message set out in the beef promotions is from beginning to end the message established by the Federal Government.^[5]*561 Congress has directed the implementation of a "coordinated program" of promotion, "including paid advertising, to advance the image and desirability of beef and beef products." 7 U. S. C. §§ 2901(b), 2902(13). Congress and the Secretary have also specified, in general terms, what the promotional campaigns shall contain, see, e. g., § 2904(4)(B)(i) (campaigns "shall . . . take into account" different types of beef products), and what they shall not, see, e. g., 7 CFR § 1260.169(d) (2004) (campaigns shall not, without prior approval, refer "to a brand or trade name of any beef product"). Thus, Congress and the Secretary have set out the overarching message and some of its elements, and they have left the development of the remaining details to an entity whose members are answerable to the Secretary (and in some cases appointed by him as well).

Moreover, the record demonstrates that the Secretary exercises final approval authority over every word used in every promotional campaign. All proposed promotional messages are reviewed by Department officials both for substance and for wording, and some proposals are rejected or rewritten by the Department. App. 114, 118-121, 274-275. Nor is the Secretary's role limited to final approval or rejection: Officials of the Department also attend and participate in the open meetings at which proposals are developed. Id., at 111-112.

This degree of governmental control over the message funded by the checkoff distinguishes these cases from Keller. *562 There the state bar's communicative activities to which the plaintiffs objected were not prescribed by law in their general outline and not developed under official government supervision. Indeed, many of them consisted of lobbying the state legislature on various issues. See 496 U. S., at 5, and n. 2. When, as here, the government sets the overall message to be communicated and approves every word that is disseminated, it is not precluded from relying on the government-speech doctrine merely because it solicits assistance from nongovernmental sources in developing specific messages.

B

Respondents also contend that the beef program does not qualify as "government speech" because it is funded by a targeted assessment on beef producers, rather than by general revenues. This funding mechanism, they argue, has two relevant effects: It gives control over the beef program not to politically accountable legislators, but to a narrow interest group that will pay no heed to respondents' dissenting views, and it creates the perception that the advertisements speak for beef producers such as respondents.

We reject the first point. The compelled-subsidy analysis is altogether unaffected by whether the funds for the promotions are raised by general taxes or through a targeted assessment. Citizens may challenge compelled support of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund government speech. And that is no less true when the funding is achieved through targeted assessments devoted exclusively to the program to which the assessed citizens object. Cf. United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 260 (1982) ("There is no principled way . . . to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act" in evaluating the burden on the right to free exercise of religion). The First Amendment does not confer a right to pay one's taxes *563 into the general fund, because the injury of compelled funding (as opposed to the injury of compelled speech) does not stem from the Government's mode of accounting. Cf. Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 700 (1986) ("The Free Exercise Clause . . . does not afford an individual a right to dictate the conduct of the Government's internal procedures"); id., at 716-717 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in result).

Some of our cases have justified compelled funding of government speech by pointing out that government speech is subject to democratic accountability. See, e. g., Abood, 431 U. S., at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); Southworth, 529 U. S., at 235. But our references to "traditional political controls," id., at 229, do not signify that the First Amendment duplicates the Appropriations Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, or that every instance of government speech must be funded by a line item in an appropriations bill. Here, the beef advertisements are subject to political safeguards more than adequate to set them apart from private messages. The program is authorized and the basic message prescribed by federal statute, and specific requirements for the promotions' content are imposed by federal regulations promulgated after notice and comment. The Secretary of Agriculture, a politically accountable official, oversees the program, appoints and dismisses the key personnel, and retains absolute veto power over the advertisements' content, right down to the wording.^[6] And Congress, of course, retains oversight authority, not to mention *564 the ability to reform the program at any time. No more is required.^[7]

As to the second point, respondents' argument proceeds as follows: They contend that crediting the advertising to "America's Beef Producers" impermissibly uses not only their money but also their seeming endorsement to promote a message with which they do not agree. Communications cannot be "government speech," they argue, if they are attributed to someone other than the government; and the person to whom they are attributed, when he is, by compulsory funding, made the unwilling instrument of communication, may raise a First Amendment objection.

We need not determine the validity of this argument— which relates to compelled speech rather than compelled *565 subsidy^[8] — with regard to respondents' facial challenge. Since neither the Beef Act nor the Beef Order requires attribution, neither can be the cause of any possible First Amendment harm. The District Court's order enjoining the enforcement of the Act and the Order thus cannot be sustained on this theory.

On some set of facts, this second theory might (again, we express no view on the point) form the basis for an as-applied challenge—if it were established, that is, that individual beef advertisements were attributed to respondents. The record, however, includes only a stipulated sampling of these promotional materials, see App. 47, and none of the exemplars provides any support for this attribution theory except for the tagline identifying the funding. Respondents apparently presented no other evidence of attribution at trial, and the District Court made no factual findings on the point. Indeed, in the only trial testimony on the subject that any party has identified, an employee of one of the respondent associations said he did not think the beef promotions would *566 be attributed to his group.^[9] Whether the individual respondents who are beef producers would be associated with speech labeled as coming from "America's Beef Producers" is a question on which the trial record is altogether silent. We have only the funding tagline itself, a trademarked term^[10] that, standing alone, is not sufficiently specific to convince a reasonable factfinder that any particular beef producer, or all beef producers, would be tarred with the content of each trademarked ad.^[11] We therefore conclude that *567 on the record before us an as-applied First Amendment challenge to the individual advertisements affords no basis on which to sustain the Eighth Circuit's judgment, even in part.

* * *

Respondents' complaint asserted a number of other grounds for declaring the Beef Act, the Beef Order, or both invalid in their entirety. The District Court, having enjoined the Act and the Order on the basis of the First Amendment, had no occasion to address these other grounds. Respondents may now proceed on these other claims.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.

I join the Court's opinion. I continue to believe that "[a]ny regulation that compels the funding of advertising must be subjected to the most stringent First Amendment scrutiny." United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405, 419 (2001) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see also Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 504-506 (1997) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). At the same time, I recognize that this principle must be qualified where the regulation compels the funding of speech that is the government's own. It cannot be that all taxpayers have a First Amendment objection to taxpayer-funded government speech, even if the funded speech is not "germane" to some broader regulatory program. See ante, at 557-559. Like the Court, I see no analytical distinction between "pure" government speech funded from general tax revenues and speech funded from targeted exactions, ante, at 562-564; the practice of using targeted taxes to fund government operations, such as excise taxes, dates from the founding, see The Federalist No. 12, p. 75 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).

*568 Still, if the advertisements associated their generic probeef message with either the individual or organization respondents, then respondents would have a valid as-applied First Amendment challenge. The government may not, consistent with the First Amendment, associate individuals or organizations involuntarily with speech by attributing an unwanted message to them, whether or not those individuals fund the speech, and whether or not the message is under the government's control. This principle follows not only from our cases establishing that the government may not compel individuals to convey messages with which they disagree, see, e. g., West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 633-634 (1943); Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 713-717 (1977), but also from our expressive-association cases, which prohibit the government from coercively associating individuals or groups with unwanted messages, see, e. g., Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S. 640, 653 (2000) (government cannot "force [an] organization to send a message" with which it disagrees); Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 576-577 (1995). If West Virginia had compelled Mr. Barnette to take out an advertisement reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and purporting to be "A Message from the Barnette Children," for example, that would have been compelled speech (if a less intrusive form of it), just like the mandatory flag salute invalidated in Barnette. The present record, however, does not show that the advertisements objectively associate their message with any individual respondent. Ante, at 564-567, and n. 11.^[*] The targeted nature of the funding is also too attenuated a link.

Moreover, these are not cases like Barnette; the government has not forced respondents to bear a government-imposed message. Cf. ante, at 565, n. 8; post, at 579, n. 9 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). The payment of taxes to the government *569 for purposes of supporting government speech is not nearly as intrusive as being forced to "utter what is not in [one's] mind," Barnette, supra, at 634, or to carry an unwanted message on one's property.

With these observations, I join the Court's opinion.

JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.

The beef checkoff program in these cases is virtually identical to the mushroom checkoff program in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), which the Court struck down on First Amendment grounds. The "government speech" theory the Court adopts today was not before us in United Foods, and we declined to consider it when it was raised at the eleventh hour. See id., at 416-417. I dissented in United Foods, based on my view that the challenged assessments involved a form of economic regulation, not speech. See id., at 428. And I explained that, were I to classify the program as involving "commercial speech," I would still vote to uphold it. See id., at 429.

I remain of the view that the assessments in these cases are best described as a form of economic regulation. However, I recognize that a majority of the Court does not share that view. Now that we have had an opportunity to consider the "government speech" theory, I accept it as a solution to the problem presented by these cases. With the caveat that I continue to believe that my dissent in United Foods offers a preferable approach, I join the Court's opinion.

JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring in the judgment.

I resist ranking the promotional messages funded under the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985, 7 U. S. C. § 2901 et seq., but not attributed to the Government, as government speech, given the message the Government conveys in its own name. See, e. g., U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Dietary Guidelines *570 for Americans 2005, pp. 69, 30, available at http://www. health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/ (as visited May 18, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court's case file) (noting that "[t]rans fatty acids . . . are present in foods that come from ruminant animals (e.g., cattle and sheep)" and recommending that Americans "[l]imit intake of fats and oils high in saturated and/or trans fatty acids"); post, at 9, n. 7 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). I remain persuaded, however, that the assessments in these cases, as in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), and Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), qualify as permissible economic regulation. See United Foods, 533 U. S., at 425 (BREYER, J., dissenting). For that reason, I concur in the judgment.

JUSTICE KENNEDY, dissenting.

I join JUSTICE SOUTER's dissenting opinion, which demonstrates with persuasive analysis why the speech at issue here cannot meaningfully be considered government speech at all. I would reserve for another day the difficult First Amendment questions that would arise if the government were to target a discrete group of citizens to pay even for speech that the government does "embrace as publicly as it speaks," post, at 580.

JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE KENNEDY join, dissenting.

The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985, known as the Beef Act, taxes cattle sold in or imported into the United States at one dollar a head. 7 U. S. C. § 2904(8). Much of the revenue is spent urging people to eat beef, as in advertisements with the slogan, "Beef. It's What's for Dinner." App. 50. Respondent taxpayers, "South Dakota and Montana ranchers and organizations representing their interests," Brief for Respondents 1, object to the tax because they disagree with the advertisements' content, which they see as *571 a generic message that "beef is good." This message, the ranchers say, ignores the fact that not all beef is the same; the ads fail to distinguish, for example, the American ranchers' grain-fed beef from the grass-fed beef predominant in the imports, which the Americans consider inferior.

The ranchers' complaint is on all fours with the objection of the mushroom growers in United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), where a similar statutory exaction was struck down as a compelled subsidy of speech prohibited by the First Amendment absent a comprehensive regulatory scheme to which the speech was incidental. The defense of the Government's actions in these cases, however, differs from the position of the United States in United Foods. There we left open the possibility that a compelled subsidy would be justifiable not only as one element of an otherwise valid regulatory scheme, but also as speech of the Government itself, which the Government may pay for with revenue (usually from taxes) exacted from those who dissent from the message as well as from those who agree with it or do not care about it. Not surprisingly, the Government argues here that the beef advertising is its own speech, exempting it from the First Amendment bar against extracting special subsidies from those unwilling to underwrite an objectionable message.

The Court accepts the defense unwisely. The error is not that government speech can never justify compelling a subsidy, but that a compelled subsidy should not be justifiable by speech unless the government must put that speech forward as its own. Otherwise there is no check whatever on government's power to compel special speech subsidies, and the rule of United Foods is a dead letter. I take the view that if government relies on the government-speech doctrine to compel specific groups to fund speech with targeted taxes, it must make itself politically accountable by indicating that the content actually is a government message, not just the statement of one self-interested group the government is *572 currently willing to invest with power. Sometimes, as in these very cases, government can make an effective disclosure only by explicitly labeling the speech as its own. Because the Beef Act fails to require the Government to show its hand, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals holding the Act unconstitutional, and I respectfully dissent from the Court's decision to condone this compelled subsidy.^[1]

* * *

In 1779 Jefferson wrote that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves ... is sinful and tyrannical." A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in 5 The Founder's Constitution, No. 37, p. 77 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987), codified in 1786 at Va. Code Ann. § 57-1 (Lexis 2003). Although he was not thinking about compelled advertising of farm produce, we echoed Jefferson's view four years ago in United Foods, where we said that "First Amendment values are at serious risk if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to pay special subsidies for speech on the side that it favors . . . ." 533 U. S., at 411. United Foods addressed a scheme of enforced exaction virtually identical to the one here, except that the product involved was mushrooms, not beef. There, as here, a federal statute forced a targeted group (mushroom growers) to pay a tax that funded ads promoting its members' produce at a generic level objectionable to some of them. We held that the mushroom statute violated the growers' First Amendment right to refuse to pay for expression when they object to its content.^[2]

*573 As the Court says, ante, at 557-559, United Foods was a descendent of two lines of precedent. The first, exemplified by West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943), and Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977), stands for the principle that government may not force individuals to utter or convey messages they disagree with or, indeed, to say anything at all. The second, comprising Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1 (1990), and Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed.,