The Volokh Conspiracy
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Today in Supreme Court History: November 11, 1975
11/11/1975: Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. argued.
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Since there are no comments here let me ask if the Thursday open thread is a thing of the past.
I was gone for a while and may have missed the announcement, or was it just quietly strangled?
Prof. Volokh must have *censored* it.
Maybe he tired of the chart depicting the periods since this blog most recently published a vile racial slur and engaged in hypocritical, viewpoint-driven censorship?
Sad that there are no comments. Commercial speech is a highly contentious issue, with some people feeling it shouldn’t be protected at all and others upset that the Supreme Court hasn’t granted it full protection.
Came up again in yesterday’s oral arguments over the Austin sign ordinance lawsuit. Breyer basically brought up the parade of horribles: if we protect commercial speech as free speech then how can the SEC deal with fraud, etc.
That was a really interesting oral argument. I think they are going to end up upholding the on premises/off premises distinction.
They might. It was really hard to get a read on this one, but I don’t think there are enough formalists on the court anymore to uphold the 5th Circuit. Some seemed pretty uncomfortable with a ruling that would basically eviscerate sign codes nationwide, for what they saw as purely technical reasons. On the other hand, some were moved by the specific examples of how the on-premise/off-premise played out.
I’d say truthful speech about potentially-useful commercial products should be protected.
Lawyer speech? I guess so, since they’ve always advertised, the only question is how. The old way for them to advertise was to give speeches on civic occasions and run for office. People nowadays are more likely to be watching some streaming service than to be listening to lengthy 4th of July orations. And while lawyers still run for office, of course, I don’t think it should be encouraged. So the billboard advertisements (properly monitored) should be OK.
Liquor prices? The point of liquor regulation is, in part, to limit access by making it more expensive, and restricting advertising would do that. So I’m not sure what I think.
I’m wondering – if a claim on behalf of a product happens to be true, shouldn’t the company be free to make the claim without waiting for government permission?
Will is joined by UChicago law professor Genevieve Lakier to discuss what she likes about Virginia State Board v. Virginia Consumer Council as a First Amendment case, whether money is speech, and how we could regulate political speech and lies.
https://dissenting-opinions.simplecast.com/episodes/free-speech-capitalism-with-genevieve-lakier
The point of liquor regulation is, in part, to limit access by making it more expensive, and restricting advertising would do that.
I don’t see how restricting advertising makes it more expensive. Besides, I can think of a more direct way to accomplish that.
Restricting advertising limits price competition, which makes it more expensive.
Wrong photo. Douglas was still on the Court.