On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v Becerra, 16-1140. The 5-4 majority said that a California law requiring anti-abortion health centers to tell their clients how they can obtain an abortion probably violates the First Amendment.

The two-page concurrence by Justice Anthony Kennedy, co-signed by Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, says, “This law is a paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought, and expression.” Also the majority opinion itself, by Justice Clarence Thomas, says on page 12, “As with other kinds of speech, regulating the content of professionals’ speech poses the inherent risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information.”

Both quotes are relevant to the pending lawsuit Soltysik v Padilla, now awaiting a decision from the Ninth Circuit. The issue in that case is a California election law that compels registered members of unqualified parties to have the ballot label, “Party preference: none”. The plaintiff is a registered Socialist and he wants the ballot to say that he prefers the Socialist Party. Other candidates who have been on California primary ballots in recent years are registered in the Socialist Workers Party, the Constitution Party, and the Socialist Equality Party. They also were forced to say they had no party preference.