City of Austin v. Reagan Nat’l Advert. of Austin

In City of Austin v. Reagan Nat’l Advert. of Austin, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor upheld a ban by the City of Austin on new off-premises signs (billboards) because this was a content-neutral regulations:

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Consistent with these precedents, the Court has previously understood distinctions between on-premises and off-premises signs, like the one at issue in this case, to be content neutral. In 1978, the Court summarily dismissed an appeal “for want of a substantial federal question” where a state court had approved of an on-/off-premises distinction as a permissible time, place, and manner restriction under the Free Speech Clause. Suffolk Outdoor Advertising Co. v. Hulse, 439 U. S. 808, 99 S. Ct. 66, 58 L. Ed. 2d 101 (1978). Three years later, the Court upheld in relevant part an ordinance that prohibited all off-premises commercial advertising but allowed on-premises commercial advertising. Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 503-512, 101 S. Ct. 2882, 69 L. Ed. 2d 800 (1981) (plurality opinion). The Metromedia court did not need to decide whether the off-premises prohibition was content based, as it regulated only commercial speech and so was subject to intermediate scrutiny in any event. See id., at 507-512, 101 S. Ct. 2882, 69 L. Ed. 2d 800 (citing Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557, 100 S. Ct. 2343, 65 L. Ed. 2d 341 (1980)). Shortly thereafter, however, the Court applied the relevant portion of Metromedia and described the off-premises prohibition as “a content-neutral prohibition against the use of billboards.” Members of City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 807, 104 S. Ct. 2118, 80 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1984) (emphasis added). Underlying these cases and others is a rejection of the view that any examination of speech or expression inherently triggers heightened First Amendment concern. Rather, it is regulations that discriminate based on “the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed” that are content based. Reed, 576 U. S., at 171, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 192 L. Ed. 2d 236. The sign code provisions challenged here do not discriminate on those bases.

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City of Austin v. Reagan Nat'l Advert. of Austin, LLC, 142 S. Ct. 1464, 1473-74 (2022) (footnote omitted).