Compelled funding of government speech—here advertising by the California Table Grapes Commission—does not violate the First Amendment or California’s equivalent free speech provision. The circumstances showed sufficient government responsibility for and control over the messaging at issue for these communications to represent government speech that plaintiffs can be required to subsidize without infringing the free speech rights of the growers who paid government assessments to fund the commission and its advertising.
California Supreme Court (Cantil-Sakauye, C.J.); May 24, 2018; 2018 Cal. LEXIS 3634