From today’s Times regarding a different Supreme Court case decided a few months ago:
[Floyd] Abrams [the prominent constitutional lawyer]
Laws based on the content of speech, the Supreme Court has long held, must face such scrutiny.
Justice Thomas took a different approach. Any law that singles out a topic for regulation, he said, discriminates based on content and is therefore presumptively unconstitutional.
Securities regulation is a topic. Drug labeling is a topic. Consumer protection is a topic.
A recent case illustrates the distinction between the old understanding of content neutrality and the new one.
This month, after the Reed decision, the appeals court reversed course and struck down the ordinance.
Last week, a federal judge in New Hampshire relied on Reed to strike down a law that made it illegal to take a picture of a completed election ballot and show it to others, including on social media. The law was meant to combat vote buying and coercion, which were common before the adoption of the secret ballot.