JOHANNS, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, et al. v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSOCIATION et al.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
550 OCTOBER TERM, 2004
Syllabus
JOHANNS, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, et al. v.
LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSOCIATION et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eighth circuit
No. 03–1164. Argued December 8, 2004—Decided May 23, 2005*
The Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 (Beef Act) establishes a
federal policy of promoting and marketing beef and beef products. The
Secretary of Agriculture has implemented the Beef Act through a Beef
Promotion and Research Order (Order), which creates a Cattlemen’s
Beef Promotion and Research Board (Beef Board) and an Operating
Committee, and imposes an assessment, or “checkoff,” on all sales and
importation of cattle. The assessment funds, among other things, beef
promotional campaigns approved by the Operating Committee and the
Secretary. Respondents, associations whose members pay the checkoff
and individuals whose cattle are subject to the checkoff, challenged the
program on First Amendment grounds, relying on United States v.
United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405, in which this Court invalidated a man-
datory checkoff that funded mushroom advertising. The District Court
found that the Beef Act and Order unconstitutionally compel respond-
ents to subsidize speech to which they object. Affirming, the Eighth
Circuit held that compelled funding of speech may violate the First
Amendment even when it is the government’s speech.
Held: Because the beef checkoff funds the Government’s own speech, it is
not susceptible to a First Amendment compelled-subsidy challenge.
Pp. 557–567.
(a) This Court has sustained First Amendment challenges in
“compelled-subsidy” cases, in which the government requires an individ-
ual to subsidize a private message he disagrees with. See Keller v.
State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1; Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209.
Keller and Abood led the Court to sustain a compelled-subsidy challenge
to an assessment whose only purpose was to fund mushroom advertis-
ing. United Foods, supra, at 413, 415–416. However, the speech in
United Foods, Keller, and Abood was found, or presumed, to be private.
The compelled-subsidy cases have consistently respected the principle
that compelled support of private speech differs from compelled support
of government speech. The Court has generally assumed, though not
*Together with No. 03–1165, Nebraska Cattlemen, Inc., et al. v. Live-
stock Marketing Association et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
551 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Syllabus
squarely held, that such funding of government speech does not alone
raise First Amendment concerns. Pp. 557–559.
(b) Respondents argue that the speech here is not government speech
because it is controlled by nongovernmental entities, i. e., the Beef
Board and Operating Committee. In fact, the message is effectively
controlled by the Federal Government. Congress and the Secretary
have set out the overarching message and some of the campaign’s ele-
ments, and have left the development of the remaining details to the
Operating Committee, half of whose members are appointed by the Sec-
retary and all of whom are subject to removal by the Secretary. The
Secretary also has final approval authority over every word in every
promotional campaign, and his subordinates attend and participate in
meetings at which proposals are developed. By contrast, in Keller the
compelled-subsidy-funded communicative activities that were not pre-
scribed by law or developed under official government supervision.
Nor does the Order’s funding mechanism affect the compelled-subsidy
analysis. That citizens have no First Amendment right not to fund gov-
ernment speech is no less true when, as here, the funding is achieved
through targeted assessments devoted to a program to which some as-
sessed citizens object, rather than through general taxes. The Court
need not address respondents’ argument that the advertisements, most
of which are credited to “America’s Beef Producers,” give the impres-
sion that respondents endorse their message. Neither the Beef Act nor
the Order requires attribution of the ads to “America’s Beef Producers”
or to anyone else, so neither can be facially invalid on this theory, and
the record contains no evidence from which to conclude that the ads’
message would be associated with respondents. Pp. 560–567.
(c) Respondents may proceed with their other challenges to the Beef
Act and Order, which the District Court did not reach. P. 567.
335 F. 3d 711, vacated and remanded.
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 opin-
ion, 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,

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
552 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Counsel
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.†
†Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both cases were filed for the
State of California by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Rich-
ard M. Frank, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Linda L. Berg, Deputy Attorney
General; for the State of Texas et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of
Texas, R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General, Rance L. Craft, Assistant Solicitor
General, Barry R. McBee, First Assistant Attorney General, and Edward
D. Burbach, Deputy Attorney General, by William Va´ zquez Irizarry, Sec-
retary of Justice of Puerto Rico, and by the Attorneys General for their
respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of
Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane
Brady of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of
Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa
Madigan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Gregory D. Stumbo of
Kentucky, Charles C. Foti, Jr., of Louisiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of
Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah
W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Patricia A. Ma-
drid of New Mexico, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Jim Petro of
Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon,
Gerald J. Pappert of Pennsylvania, Henry McMaster of South Carolina,
Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H.
Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, Christine O. Gregoire of
Washington, Peggy A. Lautenschlager of Wisconsin, and Patrick J. Crank
of Wyoming; for the American Cotton Shippers Association et al. by Wal-
ter Dellinger and Pamela Harris; for the California Agricultural Issues
Forum by Seth P. Waxman, Randolph D. Moss, Todd Zubler, and Brian
M. Boynton; for the Michigan Pork Producers Association, Inc., et al. by
Edward M. Mansfield; for Thad Cochran et al. by David A. Bono and
Gerald P. Norton; and for 113 Agricultural Industry Associations by
Charles L. Babcock and David T. Moran.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance in both cases were filed for the
Campaign for Family Farms et al. by Susan E. Stokes, David R. Moeller,

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
553 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
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 Govern-
ment’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 promot-
ing the marketing and consumption of “beef and beef prod-
ucts,” 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 con-
tain: The Secretary is to appoint a Cattlemen’s Beef Promo-
tion and Research Board (Beef Board or Board), whose mem-
bers 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 Com-
mittee, composed of 10 Beef Board members and 10 repre-
and Karen R. Krub; for the Coalition of Cotton Apparel Importers by
Carter G. Phillips, Alan Charles Raul, Eric A. Shumsky, and Michael C.
Soules; for the DKT Liberty Project et al. by Julie M. Carpenter, Daniel
Mach, and Robert M. O’Neil; for Public Citizen, Inc., by Scott L. Nelson;
for Rose Acre Farms, Inc., by Corinne R. Finnerty and Loren D. Reuter;
for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo and Rich-
ard A. Samp; for Jeanne Charter et al. by Erik S. Jaffe, Brian C. Leigh-
ton, James A. Moody, Steven B. Gold, Renee Giachino, Michael P. McMa-
hon, and Virginia B. Townes; and for Joseph Cochran et al. by William
H. Mellor, Steven M. Simpson, and Scott G. Bullock.
Barry Richard, Hank B. Campbell, and Monterey Campbell filed a brief
in both cases for the State of Florida, Department of Citrus, as amicus
curiae.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
554 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
sentatives 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 cat-
tle 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 Secre-
tary. §§ 2904(4)(B), (C).
The Secretary promulgated the Beef Order with the speci-
fied 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 trade-
marked 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 mar-
keting efforts; market and food-science research, such as
evaluations of the nutritional value of beef; and informa-
1 In most cases, only 50 cents per head is remitted to the Beef Board,
because the Beef Act and Beef Order allow domestic producers to deduct
from their $1 assessment up to 50 cents in voluntary contributions to their
state beef councils. 7 U. S. C. § 2904(8)(C); 7 CFR § 1260.172(a)(3) (2004).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
555 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
tional 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 communica-
tions 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, inter-
vened 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
2 The Department of Agriculture oversees similar programs of promo-
tional advertising, funded by checkoffs, for a number of other agricultural
commodities. See 7 CFR § 1205.10 et seq. (2004) (cotton); § 1207.301 et seq.
(potatoes); § 1210.301 et seq. (watermelons); § 1215.1 et seq. (popcorn);
§ 1216.1 et seq. (peanuts); § 1218.1 et seq. (blueberries); § 1219.1 et seq. (Hass
avocados); § 1220.101 et seq. (soybeans); § 1230.1 et seq. (pork); § 1240.1
et seq. (honey); § 1250.301 et seq. (eggs); § 1280.101 et seq. (lamb).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
556 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
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 respond-
ents on their First Amendment claim. It declared that the
Beef Act and Beef Order unconstitutionally compel respond-
ents 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 (allow-
ing 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 in-
fluence governmental policy. Id., at 1008. The court did
not rule on respondents’ other claims, but certified its resolu-
tion of the First Amendment claim as final pursuant to Fed-
eral 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,

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
557 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
may violate the First Amendment even if the speech in ques-
tion is the government’s. Ibid.
We granted certiorari. 541 U. S. 1062 (2004).
II
We have sustained First Amendment challenges to alleg-
edly 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 gov-
ernment’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 Hamp-
shire couple to bear the State’s motto, “Live Free or Die,”
on their cars’ license plates was an impermissible compul-
sion 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

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
558 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
teachers either join the labor union representing their “shop”
or pay “service fees” equal to the union dues, we have invali-
dated the use of the compulsory fees to fund speech on politi-
cal 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 member-
ship, 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 check-
off, 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 ad-
vertising 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; al-
though Abood and Keller would permit the mandatory fee if
it were “germane” to a “broader regulatory scheme,” in
3 In United Foods, the Court distinguished (and the dissent relied on)
Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), which
upheld the use of mandatory assessments to fund generic advertising pro-
moting California tree fruit. In Glickman, as in United Foods, the Gov-
ernment did not argue that the advertising was permissible government
speech. See 521 U. S., at 482, n. 2 (Souter, J., dissenting) (noting that the
Government had waived any such argument). Rather, the Government
contended, and we agreed, that compelled support for generic advertising
was legitimately part of the Government’s “collectivist” centralization of
the market for tree fruit. Id., at 475 (opinion of the Court). Here, as
in United Foods, “there is no broader regulatory system in place” that
collectivizes aspects of the beef market unrelated to speech, so Glickman
is not controlling. 533 U. S., at 415.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:23] PAGES PGT: OPIN
559 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
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. Sys-
tem 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 analy-
sis”); cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va.,
515 U. S. 819, 851–852 (1995) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (uni-
versity’s Student Activities Fund likely does not unconstitu-
tionally compel speech because it “represents not govern-
ment 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 sup-
port of government.” Abood, supra, at 259, n. 13 (Powell,
J., concurring in judgment). “Compelled support of govern-
ment”—even those programs of government one does not
approve—is of course perfectly constitutional, as every tax-
payer must attest. And some government programs in-
volve, 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 protest-
ing parties. Within this broader principle it seems inevita-
ble 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 gener-
ally 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, supra, at 721
(Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
560 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
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 cam-
paigns 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 promo-
tional 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 him-
self. 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 cam-
paigns is effectively controlled by the Federal Government
itself.4
The message set out in the beef promotions is from begin-
ning to end the message established by the Federal Gov-
4 We therefore need not label the Operating Committee as “govern-
mental” or “nongovernmental.” The entity to which assessments are
remitted is the Beef Board, all of whose members are appointed by the
Secretary pursuant to law. The Operating Committee’s only relevant
involvement is ancillary—it designs the promotional campaigns, which the
Secretary supervises and approves—and its status as a state actor thus is
not directly at issue.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
561 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
ernment.5 Congress has directed the implementation of a
“coordinated program” of promotion, “including paid adver-
tising, 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 ap-
proval, refer “to a brand or trade name of any beef product”).
Thus, Congress and the Secretary have set out the overarch-
ing 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 ex-
ercises final approval authority over every word used in
every promotional campaign. All proposed promotional
messages are reviewed by Department officials both for sub-
stance 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 rejec-
tion: 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.
5 The principal dissent suggests that if this is so, then the Government
has adopted at best a mixed message, because it also promulgates dietary
guidelines that, if followed, would discourage excessive consumption of
beef. Post, at 577, n. 5 (opinion of Souter, J.); see also post, at 569–570
(Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment). Even if we agreed that the pro-
tection of the government-speech doctrine must be forfeited whenever
there is inconsistency in the message, we would nonetheless accord the
protection here. The beef promotions are perfectly compatible with the
guidelines’ message of moderate consumption—the ads do not insist that
beef is also What’s for Breakfast, Lunch, and Midnight Snack.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
562 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
There the state bar’s communicative activities to which the
plaintiffs objected were not prescribed by law in their gen-
eral 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 assist-
ance 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 gen-
eral 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 in-
terest 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 promo-
tions are raised by general taxes or through a targeted as-
sessment. Citizens may challenge compelled support of pri-
vate speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund
government speech. And that is no less true when the fund-
ing is achieved through targeted assessments devoted exclu-
sively 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 evaluat-
ing the burden on the right to free exercise of religion). The
First Amendment does not confer a right to pay one’s taxes

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
563 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
into the general fund, because the injury of compelled fund-
ing (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 con-
duct 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 gov-
ernment 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 “tradi-
tional 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 gov-
ernment speech must be funded by a line item in an appro-
priations 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 re-
quirements for the promotions’ content are imposed by fed-
eral regulations promulgated after notice and comment.
The Secretary of Agriculture, a politically accountable offi-
cial, oversees the program, appoints and dismisses the key
personnel, and retains absolute veto power over the adver-
tisements’ content, right down to the wording.6 And Con-
gress, of course, retains oversight authority, not to mention
6 Congress also required a referendum among producers before perma-
nently implementing the checkoff, and allowed the Secretary to call an-
other referendum upon demand of a “representative group” comprising 10
percent of cattle producers. 7 U. S. C. §§ 2906(a)–(b). Even before they
amended their complaint to challenge the checkoff as compelled speech,
respondents were seeking in this litigation to force such a referendum.
See 207 F. Supp. 2d 992, 995 (SD 2002).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
564 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
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 at-
tributed to someone other than the government; and the per-
son 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
7 The principal dissent finds some “First Amendment affront” in all com-
pelled funding of government speech—and when, it says, “a targeted as-
sessment . . . makes the First Amendment affront more galling, . . . greater
care is required to ensure that the political process can practically respond
to limit the compulsion.” Post, at 576. That greater care consists, the
dissent says, of a requirement that government speech funded by a tar-
geted assessment must identify government as the speaker. Post, at 576–
578. The dissent cites no prior practice, no precedent, and no authority
for this highly refined elaboration—not even anyone who has ever before
thought of it. It is more than we think can be found within “Congress
shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Of course, noth-
ing in the Beef Act or Beef Order prevents the Government from identify-
ing itself as sponsor of the ads—much less requires concealment of the
ads’ provenance—so even if it were correct, this theory would not sustain
the judgment below, which altogether enjoined the Act and the Order.
But the correct focus is not on whether the ads’ audience realizes the
Government is speaking, but on the compelled assessment’s purported in-
terference with respondents’ First Amendment rights. As we hold today,
respondents enjoy no right not to fund government speech—whether by
broad-based taxes or targeted assessments, and whether or not the rea-
sonable viewer would identify the speech as the government’s. If a
viewer would identify the speech as respondents’, however, the analysis
would be different. See infra this page and 565–567, and n. 8.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
565 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
subsidy 8 —with regard to respondents’ facial challenge.
Since neither the Beef Act nor the Beef Order requires attri-
bution, neither can be the cause of any possible First Amend-
ment harm. The District Court’s order enjoining the en-
forcement 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 rec-
ord, however, includes only a stipulated sampling of these
promotional materials, see App. 47, and none of the exem-
plars provides any support for this attribution theory except
for the tagline identifying the funding. Respondents appar-
ently 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
8 The principal dissent conflates the two concepts into something it de-
scribes as citizens’ “presumptive autonomy as speakers to decide what to
say and what to pay for others to say.” Post, at 576. As we discuss in
the text, there might be a valid objection if “those singled out to pay the
tax are closely linked with the expression” (post, at 575–576) in a way
that makes them appear to endorse the government message. But this
compelled-speech argument (like the Wooley and Barnette opinions on
which it draws) differs substantively from the compelled-subsidy analysis.
The latter invalidates an exaction not because being forced to pay for
speech that is unattributed violates personal autonomy, but because being
forced to fund someone else’s private speech unconnected to any legitimate
government purpose violates personal autonomy. Supra, at 557–558 (dis-
cussing Keller and Abood). Such a violation does not occur when the
exaction funds government speech. Apportioning the burden of funding
government operations (including speech) through taxes and other levies
does not violate autonomy simply because individual taxpayers feel “sin-
gled out” or find the exaction “galling,” post, at 575–576, and n. 4.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
566 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Opinion of the Court
be attributed to his group.9 Whether the individual re-
spondents 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 con-
vince a reasonable factfinder that any particular beef pro-
ducer, or all beef producers, would be tarred with the con-
tent of each trademarked ad.11 We therefore conclude that
9 An employee of respondent Western Organization of Resource Councils
(WORC) testified as follows:
“Q When someone would see an ad that says, ‘Beef, it’s what’s for din-
ner,’ do you believe anyone looks at that ad and says that message is
coming from WORC?
“A I don’t think so.
“Q . . . [D]o you have any basis to actually believe that any of these
messages promoted by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board are attributed to
WORC as an organization?
. . . . .
“A No, I don’t think so.” Tr. 46–47 (Jan. 14, 2002).
10 The phrase “America’s Beef Producers” has apparently been trade-
marked by the Board since 1999, see http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?
regser=registration&entry=2352917 (as visited May 20, 2005, and available
in Clerk of Court’s case file), and some promotional materials are attrib-
uted to “America’s Beef ProducersSM
.” Other promotional materials in
the record, however, bear other attributions (such as a notice identifying
the Beef Board as the copyright holder, or the apparently untrademarked
phrase “Funded by America’s Veal Producers through the Beef Check-
off ”). App. 52.
11 “America’s Beef Producers” might be thought more plausibly to refer
to a particular organization of beef producers, and such an organization
might have a valid First Amendment objection if the ads’ message were
incorrectly attributed to it. Cf. Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian
and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 572–573 (1995). But
neither of the respondent groups claims that it would be mistaken for
“America’s Beef Producers,” see n. 9, supra, and none of the individual
respondents claims to be injured because of his membership in an organi-
zation. Rather, respondents claim that “America’s Beef Producers” is
precise enough to identify the speech as coming from Robert Thullner,
John Smith, Ernie Mertz, and the other respondents who are American
beef producers.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
567 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Thomas, J., concurring
on the record before us an as-applied First Amendment chal-
lenge 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 en-
joined 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 govern-
ment’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 opera-
tions, such as excise taxes, dates from the founding, see The
Federalist No. 12, p. 75 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
568 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Thomas, J., concurring
Still, if the advertisements associated their generic pro-
beef message with either the individual or organization re-
spondents, 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 dis-
agree, 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 associ-
ating 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 mes-
sage” 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 Govern-
ment 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 gov-
*I note that on remand respondents may be able to amend their com-
plaint to assert an attribution claim. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
569 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment
ernment 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 un-
wanted 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 iden-
tical 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 “govern-
ment 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 chal-
lenged 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. How-
ever, I recognize that a majority of the Court does not share
that view. Now that we have had an opportunity to con-
sider the “government speech” theory, I accept it as a solu-
tion 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 gov-
ernment 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

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
570 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
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) (not-
ing 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 578, 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 per-
missible 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 demon-
strates 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 Amend-
ment 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 Jus-
tice 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 adver-
tisements with the slogan, “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner.”
App. 50. Respondent taxpayers, “South Dakota and Mon-
tana ranchers and organizations representing their inter-
ests,” Brief for Respondents 1, object to the tax because they
disagree with the advertisements’ content, which they see as

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
571 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
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 Govern-
ment 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 objection-
able message.
The Court accepts the defense unwisely. The error is not
that government speech can never justify compelling a sub-
sidy, but that a compelled subsidy should not be justifiable
by speech unless the government must put that speech for-
ward 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

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
572 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
currently willing to invest with power. Sometimes, as in
these very cases, government can make an effective disclo-
sure only by explicitly labeling the speech as its own. Be-
cause the Beef Act fails to require the Government to show
its hand, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Ap-
peals holding the Act unconstitutional, and I respectfully dis-
sent 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 Estab-
lishing 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 mush-
room statute violated the growers’ First Amendment right
to refuse to pay for expression when they object to its
content.2
1 The Government’s petition for certiorari also presented a question as
to whether more limited relief might be available, but the Court denied
certiorari on that question and hence it is not before us.
2 We also noted that while the mushroom growers’ disagreement with
the ads’ message “could be seen as minor . . . , there is no apparent prin-
ciple which distinguishes out of hand minor debates about whether a

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
573 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
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.,
431 U. S. 209 (1977), is authority for the related proposition
that, absent substantial justification, government may not
force targeted individuals to pay for others to speak.
Four years before United Foods we held that one such
ground was present where enforced contribution to objec-
tionable speech is incidental to a “broader collective enter-
prise in which th[e] freedom to act independently is already
constrained by the regulatory scheme. ” Gl ickman v.
Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 469 (1997).
As noted, United Foods left open the possibility of another
justification, that the objectionable message is “government
speech,” which our case law suggests is immune to many
types of First Amendment challenge. See ante, at 558–559.
Although we declined to address the pertinence of a
government-speech justification in United Foods, it is crucial
to the defense of the statute here because, as the District
Court and the Court of Appeals observed (and as the Court
appears to agree), these cases are factually on all fours with
branded mushroom is better than just any mushroom.” United Foods,
533 U. S., at 411. The First Amendment, in other words, is not limited to
“serious” or “substantial” disputes about content. Even if it were, the
mushroom growers could have argued, as the ranchers could argue here,
that because they would prefer to say nothing than to convey the message
in the ads, the ads violate their First Amendment right not to speak at
all. See, e. g., Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471
U. S. 539, 559 (1985) (“There is necessarily, and within suitably defined
areas, a [First Amendment] freedom not to speak publicly, one which
serves the same ultimate end as freedom of speech in its affirmative as-
pect” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
574 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
United Foods. See 335 F. 3d 711, 717 (CA8 2003) (“[W]e
agree with the district court that ‘[t]he beef checkoff is, in
all material respects, identical to the mushroom checkoff ’ ”
program challenged in United Foods (quoting 207 F. Supp.
2d 992, 1002 (SD 2002))), quoted ante, at 558. Unless, then,
the doctrine of government speech is defined in such a way
as to justify the targeted compulsion here, the enforced sub-
sidy for beef ads must fail along with the mushroom subsidy.
In my judgment the beef subvention should fail, for I, unlike
the Court, do not believe that the beef ads qualify for treat-
ment as speech by the Government.
The government-speech doctrine is relatively new, and
correspondingly imprecise. In fact, the few cases in which
we have addressed the doctrine have for the most part not
gone much beyond such broad observations as “[t]he govern-
ment, 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 poli-
cies.” Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. South-
worth, 529 U. S. 217, 229 (2000). Even at this somewhat
early stage of development, however, two points about the
doctrine are clear.
The first point of certainty is the need to recognize the
legitimacy of government’s power to speak despite objec-
tions by dissenters whose taxes or other exactions neces-
sarily go in some measure to putting the offensive message
forward to be heard. To govern, government has to say
something, and a First Amendment heckler’s veto of any
forced contribution to raising the government’s voice in the
“marketplace of ideas” 3 would be out of the question. See
3 See Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J.,
joined by Brandeis, J., dissenting) (“[T]he ultimate good desired is better
reached by free trade in ideas—th[e] . . . best test of truth is the power of
the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . ”).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
575 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
Keller, supra, at 12–13 (“If every citizen were to have a right
to insist that no one paid by public funds express a view with
which he disagreed, debate over issues of great concern to
the public would be limited to those in the private sector,
and the process of government as we know it radically
transformed”).
The second fixed point of government-speech doctrine is
that the First Amendment interest in avoiding forced subsi-
dies is served, though not necessarily satisfied, by the politi-
cal process as a check on what government chooses to say.
“When the government speaks, for instance to promote its
own policies or to advance a particular idea, it is, in the end,
accountable to the electorate and the political process for
its advocacy.” Southworth, supra, at 235; see also Abood,
supra, at 259, n. 13 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment)
(“[T]he reason for permitting the government to compel the
payment of taxes and to spend money on controversial proj-
ects is that the government is representative of the people”).
Democracy, in other words, ensures that government is not
untouchable when its speech rubs against the First Amend-
ment interests of those who object to supporting it; if enough
voters disagree with what government says, the next elec-
tion will cancel the message.
The adequacy of the democratic process to render the sub-
sidization of government speech tolerable is, naturally, tied
to the character of the subsidy. For when government funds
its speech with general tax revenue, as it usually does, no
individual taxpayer or group of taxpayers can lay claim to a
special, or even a particularly strong, connection to the
money spent (and hence to the speech funded). See Massa-
chusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 486–487 (1923). Outrage
is likely to be rare, and disagreement tends to stay temper-
ate. But the relative palatability of a remote subsidy shared
by every taxpayer is not to be found when the speech is
funded with targeted taxes. For then, as here, the particu-
lar interests of those singled out to pay the tax are closely

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
576 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
linked with the expression, and taxpayers who disagree with
it suffer a more acute limitation on their presumptive auton-
omy as speakers to decide what to say and what to pay for
others to say. See Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian
and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 573 (1995)
(“[T]he fundamental rule of protection under the First
Amendment [is] that a speaker has the autonomy to choose
the content of his own message”).4
When a targeted assessment thus makes the First Amend-
ment affront more galling, it does, or should, follow that
greater care is required to ensure that the political process
can practically respond to limit the compulsion Jefferson in-
veighed against. Whereas it would simply be unrealistic to
think that every speech subsidy from general revenue could
or should be scrutinized for its amenability to effective politi-
4 The Court asserts that in fact there is no difference between a taxpay-
er’s challenge to speech funded with general revenues, which our prece-
dents foreclose, and a challenge to speech funded with targeted taxes.
But the Court’s lone authority for that position, our statement in United
States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 (1982), that “[t]here is no principled way . . . to
distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social
Security Act,” id., at 260, quoted ante, at 562, is unavailing. Lee involved
a religious objection to paying Social Security taxes, and the Court’s state-
ment in that case was grounded in the recognition that if the Government
were required to accommodate the objection, there would be nothing to
stop others from raising a similar religious objection to paying “general
taxes.” Here there is no comparable danger because of the commonsense
notion that individuals feel a closer connection to speech that they are
singled out to fund with targeted taxes than they do to expression paid
for with general revenues. We recognized this in Massachusetts v.
Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), where we noted that the individual taxpayer’s
“interest in the moneys of the Treasury—partly realized from taxation
and partly from other sources—is shared with millions of others [and] is
comparatively minute and indeterminable.” Id., at 487. This common-
sense notion, then, provides a “principled way” to distinguish in this con-
text between targeted and general taxes. The Court in Lee seemed to
recognize that its reasoning might be limited in this way, as the unre-
dacted version of its statement reads: “[t]here is no principled way, how-
ever, for purposes of this case, to distinguish between general taxes and
those imposed under the Social Security Act.” 455 U. S., at 260.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
577 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
cal response, the less-common targeted speech subsidies can
be reviewed specifically for their susceptibility to response
by the voters, and the intensity of the provocation experi-
enced by the targeted group justifies just such scrutiny.
In these cases, the requirement of effective public account-
ability means the ranchers ought to prevail, it being clear
that the Beef Act does not establish an advertising scheme
subject to effective democratic checks. The reason for this
is simple: the ads are not required to show any sign of being
speech by the Government, and experience under the Act
demonstrates how effectively the Government has masked
its role in producing the ads.5 Most obviously, many of them
include the tagline, “[f]unded by America’s Beef Producers,”
App. 50–51, which all but ensures that no one reading them
will suspect that the message comes from the National Gov-
ernment.6 But the tagline just underscores the point that
would be true without it, that readers would most naturally
think that ads urging people to have beef for dinner were
placed and paid for by the beef producers who stand to profit
when beef is on the table. No one hearing a commercial for
Pepsi or Levi’s thinks Uncle Sam is the man talking behind
the curtain. Why would a person reading a beef ad think
5 The Court thinks it is enough that the Government is not required to
mislead in this way. Ante, at 564, n. 7. This view that the statute is
saved because it might be applied without misleading readers apparently
reflects the Court’s position that these cases involve a facial challenge.
Ante, at 564–565. But the challenge here is to the application of the stat-
ute through actual, misleading ads, as shown by a record replete with
examples.
6 Disputing this, petitioners Nebraska Cattlemen, Inc., et al., suggest
that any danger of confusion is eliminated by the inclusion in the beef ads
of a red checkmark with the word “beef ” atop it, because this “distinctive
checkoff logo is a direct sign that the ads are disseminated pursuant to the
federal checkoff program.” Reply Brief for Petitioners in No. 03–1165,
pp. 15–16. It seems to me quite implausible that most (or even some)
Americans associate a red checkmark underneath the word “beef ” with
the Federal Government. Indeed, it strikes me that even someone gener-
ally familiar with the Beef Act and its taxation mandate might not recog-
nize the checkoff logo as signifying Government involvement.

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
578 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
Uncle Sam was trying to make him eat more steak? 7 Given
the circumstances, it is hard to see why anyone would sus-
pect the Government was behind the message unless the
message came out and said so.
The Court takes the view that because Congress author-
ized this scheme and the Government controls (or at least
has a veto on) the content of the beef ads, the need for demo-
cratic accountability has been satisfied. See ante, at 563–
564. But the Court has it backwards. It means nothing
that Government officials control the message if that fact is
never required to be made apparent to those who get the
message, let alone if it is affirmatively concealed from them.
The political accountability of the officials with control is in-
sufficient, in other words, just because those officials are al-
lowed to use their control (and in fact are deliberately using
it) to conceal their role from the voters with the power to
hold them accountable.8 Unless the putative government
7 Moreover, anyone who did draw such an unlikely connection would also
have to believe that Uncle Sam was having a hard time making his mind
up, for other, expressly governmental messages take a different view of
how much beef Americans should be eating. Dietary Guidelines for
Americans 2005, a publication of the Departments of Agriculture and of
Health and Human Services, discusses beef in a chapter entitled “Fats.”
Http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document (as visited
May 16, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). The message of
that chapter is that most Americans need to reduce their consumption of
fats, and should get most of the fats they do eat from sources other than
beef, namely, fish, nuts, and vegetable oils. See id., at 29–31. That the
report, which the Secretaries of Agriculture and of Health and Human
Services say “is intended to be a primary source of dietary health informa-
tion,” id., at i, does not encourage the consumption of beef (as the beef ads
do) is clear from the fact that a different chapter, which discusses fruits,
vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free dairy products, is entitled “Food
Groups to Encourage,” id., at 23.
8 Notably, the Court nowhere addresses how, or even whether, the bene-
fits of allowing government to mislead taxpayers by concealing its spon-
sorship of expression outweigh the additional imposition on First Amend-
ment rights that results from it. Indeed, the Court describes no benefits
from its approach and gives no reason to think First Amendment doctrine

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
579 Cite as: 544 U. S. 550 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
speech appears to be coming from the government, its gov-
ernmental origin cannot possibly justify the burden on the
First Amendment interests of the dissenters targeted to pay
for it.9
Nor is it any answer that resourceful taxpayers could dis-
cover the Government behind the beef ads by doing research
on the implementation of the Beef Act. Of course a tax-
payer could discover the facts by looking hard enough, but
what would tip off the taxpayer to look? And even if a few
taxpayers did unearth the truth it would not matter, for the
First Amendment harm cannot be mitigated by the possibil-
ity that a few cognoscenti may actually understand how the
scheme works. If the judiciary is justified in keeping hands
off special assessments on dissenters from government
speech, it is because there is a practical opportunity for polit-
ical response; esoteric knowledge on the part of a few will
not do.
should accommodate the Government’s subterfuge. The Court merely
observes that no precedent requires the Government to show its hand
when it seeks to defend a targeted assessment by claiming government
speech. Ante, at 564, n. 7. That is of course to be expected, since the
government-speech doctrine is so new that the Government has never
before enjoyed the opportunity to invoke it in this Court when attempting
to justify the type of compelled subsidy struck down in United Foods.
Since the Court now says the Government need never show its hand in
cases like this one, ante, at 564–565, there is no chance for an effective
political check on forced funding for speech, however objectionable.
9 That said, I do not mean to suggest that explicitly labeling speech as
that of government would suffice when individuals must personally convey
government’s message, as in West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319
U. S. 624 (1943), and Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977). The in-
fringement on the speaker’s autonomy in those situations is greater than
in cases like the ones before us today, so great that it cannot be saved by
allowing speakers to inform listeners that they (the speakers) are simply
communicating a government message or that they disagree with the mes-
sage. The Court apparently took the same view in Wooley, as it was
unmoved by the dissent’s observation in that case that New Hampshire
drivers were free to “place on their bumper a conspicuous bumper sticker
explaining in no uncertain terms that they do not profess the motto ‘Live
Free or Die.’ ” Id., at 722 (opinion of Rehnquist, J.).

544US2 Unit: $U47 [11-04-07 13:39:24] PAGES PGT: OPIN
580 JOHANNS v. LIVESTOCK MARKETING ASSN.
Souter, J., dissenting
In sum, the First Amendment cannot be implemented by
sanctioning government deception by omission (or by mis-
leading statement) of the sort the Court today condones,
and expression that is not ostensibly governmental, which
government is not required to embrace as publicly as it
speaks, cannot constitute government speech sufficient to
justify enforcement of a targeted subsidy to broadcast it.
The Court of Appeals thus correctly held that United Foods
renders the Beef Act’s mandatory-assessment provisions
unconstitutional.10
10 Petitioners also defend the Beef Act by pointing to Central Hudson
Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557 (1980),
where we subjected restrictions on commercial speech to a less rigorous
level of review than that applied to restrictions on most other types of
speech. But the Court strongly suggested in Glickman v. Wileman
Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457, 469 (1997), and in United States v.
United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405 (2001), both that Central Hudson scru-
tiny is not appropriate in a case involving compelled speech rather than
restrictions on speech, and that even if some relaxed standard of review
analogous to Central Hudson were employed the Beef Act would not sur-
vive it. See Glickman, supra, at 474, n. 18 (“The Court of Appeals fails
to explain why the Central Hudson test, which involved a restriction on
commercial speech, should govern a case involving the compelled funding
of speech”); United Foods, supra, at 410 (“[E]ven viewing commercial
speech as entitled to lesser protection, we find no basis under either Glick-
man or our other precedents to sustain the compelled assessments sought
in this case”). Petitioners do not explain why we should depart from
these intimations that restrictions on speech are not judged by the same
standard as compelled speech.